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MYRON T. HERRICK 

UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE 

From a hitherto unpublished drawing' by Royer 



PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

THE EXPERIENCE OF AN 
AMERICAN NEWSPAPER MAN IN FRANCE 



BY 

WYTHE WILLIAMS 

PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, 

OFFICIALLY ACCREDITED TO THE FRENCH 

ARMIES ON THE WESTERN FRONT 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

MYRON T. HERRICK 

FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE 



NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



. VV ^ 



Copyright, 1916 
By E. p. button & COMPANY 



y-. 



-J"® 



PRINTED IN THH UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



-2 1916 

©CI,A427914 



TO VIOLA 



PREFACE 

Special correspondents in great numbers have 
come from America into the European '^zone of 
military activity," and in almost equal numbers 
have they gone out, to write their impressions, 
their descriptions, their histories, their romances 
and songs. 

Other correspondents who are not "special," 
but who by the grace of the military authorities 
have been permitted to enter the forbidden terri- 
tory, and by the favor of the censor have been al- 
lowed to tell what they saw there, have entered it 
again and again at regular intervals. 

These are the ** regular" correspondents, who 
lived in Europe before war was declared, and who 
during many idle hours speculated on what they 
would do with that great arm of their vocation — 
the cable — when the expected hour of conflict ar- 
rived. 

Few of their plans worked out, and new ones 
were formed on the minute — on the second. For 
the Grermans did not cut the cable, as some of the 



PREFACE 

correspondents, in moments of despair, almost 
hoped they would do, and the great American pub- 
lic clamored insistently for the *'news" with its 
breakfast. 

It is a journalist's methods in covering the big- 
gest, the hardest ''story" that newspapers were 
ever compelled to handle, that this book attempts 
to describe. 

Wythe Williams. 

Paris, October, 1915. 



AN ENDORSEMENT 
By Geoeges Clemenceaxj 

Former Premier of France. 

**In the crowded picture which this American 
journalist has presented we recognize our men as 
they are. And he pronounces such judgment as 
to arouse our pride in our friends, our brothers 
and our children. Such a people are the French 
of to-day. They must also be the French of to- 
morrow. Through them France sees herself re- 
generate. 

*'0f our army, Mr. "Wythe Williams says : 

** 'It seems to me to be invincible from the 
standpoints of power, intelligence and humanity.' 

*'Is there not in that something like a judgment 
pronounced upon France before the people of the 
world? Where I am particularly surprised, I ad- 
mit, is that the eye of a foreigner should have been 
so penetrating, and that our friendly guest should 
have coupled the idea of an * invincible ' army with 
the supreme ethical consideration of its 'hu- 
manity. ' 



AN ENDORSEMENT 

*'Mr. Wythe Williams is right to proclaim this, 
even though it is something of a stroke of genius 
for a non-Frenchman to have discovered it.'* 
— (From an editorial in L'Eomme Enchaine.) 



LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM 
SENATOR LAFAYETTE YOUNG 

My Dear Williams: 

I am glad to know that you are going to write 
about the war in book form. In doing this you are 
discharging a plain duty. You have been in the 
war from the start. You have studied the soldier 
in the trench, and out. You have witnessed every 
phase of battle. The war is in your system. You 
are full of it. Therefore, you can write concern- 
ing it with inspiration and fervor. 

I remember our long marches in and near the 
trenches in Northern France in April and May, 
last. I know how deeply you are interested; 
therefore, I know how well you will write. 

A thousand historians will write books concern- 
ing the present great conflict, but the real his- 
torians will be the honest, independent observers 
such as you have been. 

Newspaper reports will be the basis of every 
battle's history. 

Take the battle of the Marne, for instance. 
Who knows so well concerning it as men like your- 



LETTER FROM SENATOR YOUNG 

self, who were in Paris or near it during the seven 
days' conflict? 

The passing years may bring dignified his- 
torians who will compose sentences which shall 
sound well, but none of them will be so full of real 
history as your volume if you write your own ex- 
periences. 

I never knew a man freer from prejudice, and 
at the same time fuller of enthusiasm than your- 
self. I want you to write your book with the same 
free hand you write for the New Yorh Times. 
Forget for the time that you are writing a book. 

I am pleased to know that you have been with 
the army several times since I parted company 
with you. This, with your experience as an 
ambulance driver, when the first hostilities were 
on, has certainly made you a military writer worth 
while. 

I count you to be one of the three best and most 
truthful American correspondents who have been 
in the war from the start. 

I am hoping the time will come when these wars 
shall end, when bright men like yourself shall re- 
turn to the work of journalism in America. 

With greatest affection, I subscribe myself, 

Lafayette Youhtg. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction by Myron T. Herrick xiii 

PART ONE 
THE HECTIC WEEK 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Day 1 

II The Night 9 

III Herrick 19 

IV Les Americains 31 

V War 39 

PART TWO 
THE GREATEST STORY 

VI The Actuality 49 

VII The Field of Glory 55 

PART THREE 
THE ARM OF MILITARY AUTHORITY 

Vni The Field of Battle 73 

(A) Sentries in the Dark 

(B) The Wounded Who Could Walk 

(C) A Lull in the Bombardment 

IX "Detained" by the Colonel ...... 94 

X The Cherche Midi HO 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XI Under the Croix Rouge ....... 120 

(A) Trevelyan 

(B) The Rue Jeanne d'Are 

(C) Those from Quesnoy-sur-Somme 

PART FOUR 
WAR-CORRESPONDING DE LUXE 
XII Out with Captain Blank 145 

XIII Joffre 157 

XIV The Man op the Marne and the Yser . . . 172 
XV The Battle op the Labyrinth 184 

XVI "With the Honors of War" 193 

XVII Sister Julie, Chevalier op the Legion op 

Honor 209 

XVIII The Silent Cannon 226 

XIX D'Artagnan and the Soul op France . . . 230 

PART FIVE 
THREE CHAPTERS IN CONCLUSION 

XX A Rearpost op War 245 

XXI Myths 256 

XXII When Chenal Sings the "Marseillaise" . . 264 



AN INTRODUCTION 
By Myeon T. Herrick, 

Former United States Ambassador to France. 

The rigid censorship placed on journalism upon 
the declaration of war in Europe brought the rep- 
resentatives of the American press into close re- 
lationship with the Embassy. The news which 
they brought to the Embassy and such news as 
they received there, required unusual discretion, 
frankness and confidence on the part of all con- 
cerned in order that the American public should 
receive accurate information, while avoiding the 
commission of any improprieties against the coun- 
tries involved in the great conflict. 

In this supreme test the American newspaper 
representatives appreciated that they were some- 
thing more than mere purveyors of news; they 
arose to the full comprehension of their responsi- 
bility, and were of invaluable assistance to the 
Embassy, and through it to the nation. 

While there has been no opportunity to read the 
advance sheets of this book, my confidence in the 



INTRODUCTION 

character and ability of the author, begotten in 
those days when real merit, and demerit as well, 
were revealed, makes it a pleasure to write this 
foreword, and to commend this volume unseen. 
(Signed) 




Cleveland, Ohio, October 19th, 1915. 



A FOREWORD 

At the outbreak of the European war, the au- 
thor, who was then stationed in Paris as the cor- 
respondent of the New York Times, was refused, 
with all other correspondents, any credentials per- 
mitting him to enter the fighting area. He en- 
tered it later, immediately after the battle of the 
Mame, with what were in Paris considered suffi- 
cient credentials. But he was arrested, returned 
to Paris as a prisoner of war and lodged in the 
Cherche Midi prison, the famous military prison, 
where Dreyfus was confined. He was released 
upon the intervention of Ambassador Herrick, but 
still baffled in getting to the front as a war cor- 
respondent, he volunteered for service in the Red 
Cross as an orderly on a motor ambulance. A few 
of the descriptions in the following pages are writ- 
ten from notes made during the two months he re- 
mained in that service. 

At the beginning of 1915, the author was offi- 
cially accredited as a correspondent attached to 
the French army, and at the beginning of Feb- 



FOREWORD 

ruary sent to his paper the longest cable despatch 
permitted to pass the censor since the beginning 
of the war, and the first authentic detailed descrip- 
tion of the French forces after the battle of the 
Marne. 

The following spring, at the height of the first 
great French offensive north of Arras, the famous 
ground, every yard of which is stained with both 
French and German blood, the author was selected 
by the French Ministry of War as the only neutral 
correspondent permitted there. The first descrip- 
tion given to America of the battle of the Laby- 
rinth was the result. 

Since then the author has made a number of 
trips to the front, always under the escort of an 
officer of the Great General Headquarters Staff, 
and has seen practically the entire line of the 
French trenches, up to the moment of the autumn 
offensive in Champagne. He was the first Amer- 
ican correspondent to foreshadow this offensive 
in a long cable to his paper at the end of August, 
in which he asserted that the attack would com- 
mence ' ' before the leaves are red, ' ' that being the 
only wording of the facts permitted by the censor, 
but which exactly timed the date of the action. A 
few of the following chapters have been rewritten 
from the author's article published in the New 



FOREWORD 

York Times, to which acknowledgment is made for 
permission to use such material. The author 
however wishes alone to stand sponsor for the 
sentiments and opinions expressed throughout the 
volume. 



PAET ONE 
THE HECTIC WEEK 



PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

CHAPTEK I 

THE DAY 

A MEMBER of the Garde Republicaine, whose 
duty was to keep order in the court, was creating 
great disorder by climbing over the shoulders of 
the mob in the press section. He ousted friends 
of the white-faced prisoner in the dock, to make 
room for a fat reporter from Petit Parisien, who 
ordinarily did finance but was now relieving a 
confrere at the lunch hour. The case in court 
was that of the famous affaire Caillaux and all 
the world was reading bulletins concerning its 
progress as fast as special editions could supply 
them. 

I was sitting in the last of the over-crowded 
rows allotted to the press, but filled with whoever 
got there first. I was one of the few Americans 
permitted to cover this important ** story" first 
hand, instead of having to write my nightly 
cables from reports in the evening papers. 



2 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

As the Petit Parisien man wheezed and jostled 
his way to a seat on the bench just in front of me, 
I caught some words he flung to a friend in pass- 
ing. Maitre Labori was proclaiming the inno- 
cence of the prisoner with all the fervor for which 
he is celebrated, and I was wondering how soon 
an adjournment would let us escape from the 
stifling heat of the room. It was the latter part 
of July, 1914 ; and true to French custom all of the 
windows were shut tight. 

The words of the fat reporter pricked my flag- 
ging attention, ' ' There is a panic on the Bourse. ' ' 

The words caused a buzz of comment all around 
me. One English journalist, monocled and su- 
perior, even stopped his writing, and the financial 
reporter, his fat body half crowded into his seat, 
paused midway to add: "The Austrian note to 
Serbia that has got them all scared." 

Another French newspaperman some seats 
away overheard the talk and joined in loudly. It 
did not matter how much we talked during the 
proceedings of the affaire Caillaux. Everybody 
talked. Often everybody talked at the same 
moment. This journalist prefaced his remarks 
by a derisive laugh. 

''They are crazy on the Bourse," he said. 
''You may be sure that nothing matters now in 



THE DAY 3 

France but this trial. No panic, or Austrian note, 
or Russian note or anything, will rival it as a 
newspaper story, I am certain." 

The fat reporter again wheezed into speech. 

"I do not know very much concerning this af- 
faire Caillaux," he replied, ^'but I will bet you 
money that the verdict will not get a top head- 
line." 

''Why?" cried some of us, mocking and in- 
credulous. 

"Because of what I've told you. There is a 
panic on the Bourse." 

The presiding judge announced the luncheon 
adjournment ; we trooped to the basement restau- 
rant of the Palais de Justice. I found myself 
sitting at a table with the superior Englishman. 
We discussed the qualities of French cuisine for 
a moment ; then he said : 

*'It will be jolly annoying if this Bourse busi- 
ness develops into war, you know." 

This was the first mention that I remember of 
the word ''war" in connection with the events 
that followed so fast for the next few weeks, that 
now as I look back upon them, they do not seem 
real at all. One week to the day following this 
luncheon, I remember saying to a fellow news- 
paper correspondent, "Is it a week, or is it a year, 



4 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

since we had Peace in the world!" But at the 
first mention of the word — the first premonition 
of the nearness of the tragedy that was descend- 
ing upon Europe — I remember signaling some- 
what abstractedly to a waiter, and giving him an 
order for food. 

Every one of the Americans who covered that 
session of the Caillaux trial had lived in Europe 
for years; and the majority were to remain as 
onlookers of the great war that had been so long 
predicted. But on this day none of us realized, 
and none of us knew; and that was the greater 
part of all our troubles. 

I remember a conversation only a few weeks 
before all this happened, with Mr. Charles K. 
Miller, the editor of the New York Times, who 
was passing through Paris on his return to New 
York from Carlsbad. He asked me when I in- 
tended going home, and I replied to him as I had 
to many others : 

**Not until they pull off this war over here. I 
have been in the newspaper game ever since I left 
college, but I have never been lucky enough to 
cover a war. So I do not propose to miss this 
one. ' ' 

Then came the invariable question: 

''When do you think it will come?" 



THE DAY 5 

I had my reply ready. All of us had made 
it many times. 

*'0h, perhaps in a few years. Perhaps it will 
not be so very long." 

The next remark of at least half the persons 
with whom I discussed the question was, "Pooh, 
pooh, there'll never be a European war." Mr. 
Miller only said, "What will you do when it 
comes?" 

Again the reply was pat to hand, but how 
vague it seems now, in the light of then fast 
approaching events! It was: 

"There will be warning enough to make our 
plans for beating the censor, I am certain." 

It is easy enough to look back now and declare 
that incidents such as Agadir, the Balkan war 
and Sarejebo should have been sufficient hand- 
writing on the wall. All those affairs were ex- 
actly that, but we simply could not grasp the idea, 
that actual Armageddon could come without at 
least months of announcement — time enough for 
all of us to make our plans. In this I do not 
think we should be blamed, for we followed so 
exactly the fatuous beliefs of even foreign minis- 
tries. That the great moment should come in a 
week never entered our imaginations. 

We filed back to the court room on that after- 



6 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

noon of the Caillanx trial and fought for the last 
time the twice daily battle for our seats. I sat 
beside the superior Englishman. We listened 
idly to famous politicians and famous doctors and 
famous lawyers garbling as best they could the 
dead question of the murder of Gaston Calmette, 
and the more burning though irrelevant one as to 
whether Joseph Caillaux was a traitor. 

My companion and I discovered that our ar- 
rangements for a summer vacation included the 
same tiny Brittany hamlet by the sea. We passed 
a portion of the afternoon making mutual plans 
for the coming month, and at the adjournment 
drove away from the ancient building on the banks 
of the Seine in the same fiacre, both trying to 
align the chief features of the day's sitting, and 
planning the writing of our night's despatches. 

After an hour at my desk that evening, I re- 
member turning to Mr. Walter Duranty, my chief 
assistant, and saying, "It is about two thousand 
words to-night. With all the direct testimony 
that the Associated Press is sending, it ought to 
lead the paper to-morrow morning. Mark it 
'rush.' " 

''But about this panic on the Bourse story! 
Don't you think we should send a special on 
that?" Mr. Duranty asked. 



THE DAY 7 

''Why I" I questioned. 

"Because there is an Austrian brokerage firm 
that has been selling like mad — started all the 
trouble; it is the identical firm that two years 
ago — " His voice broke off suddenly. "Lis- 
ten!" he then shouted. We made a rush to the 
front windows looking upon the Boulevard des 
Italiens near the Opera. 

The street was seething, which signified exactly 
nothing, for the Caillaux case had kept the boule- 
vards stirred up for days. 

"They are yelling, 'Down with Caillaux!' " I 
said, as we tore open the window sashes. 

"No — it's something else." 

We leaned far out. Under the lights moved 
thousands of heads. Hundreds were reading the 
latest editions, but in the middle of the road a mob 
was surging, and we heard a monotonous cry. It 
was a cry heard that night in Paris for the first 
time in forty-four years. 

The mob was shouting, "To Berlin!" 

I slammed shut the window. "Cut that 
Caillaux cable to a thousand words," I yelled, as 
I seized my hat, ran down the stairs, and plunged 
into the crowd, snatching the latest editions as I 
ran. 

The Austro-Serb and Russian news had become 



8 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

worse witliin a few hours, and there were already 
rumors of Franco-German frontier incidents. I 
hurried along the boulevards, calling at the offices 
of the Matin and the London Daily Mail, but could 
get no inside information ; nothing but official an- 
nouncements which would be cabled by the news 
agencies, and did not interest me, the correspon- 
dent of a paper receiving all agency matter. 

Later I returned to my office, cabled a story that 
pictured the scene in the boulevards and gave 
some details concerning the Austrian brokerage 
firm that had precipitated the trouble on the 
Bourse by its selling orders. My paper alone 
carried the next morning the significant informa- 
tion that this same Austrian house, with high 
Vienna connections, had made an enormous for- 
tune just two years before, when it had accurate 
and precise information concerning the hour that 
the conflict in the Balkans would begin. 

This story was a "beat" — probably it was the 
first **beat" of the European war, but it was al- 
most lost in the mass of heavy despatches that on 
that night began crowding the cables from every 
capital in Europe. The next morning probably 
every newspaper in the world led its columns with 
the subject of war. Even in Paris the affaire 
Caillaux was relegated to the second page. 



CHAPTER II 

THE NIGHT 

A ''beat'* or a ''scoop," otherwise known as 
exclusive news, is a great matter to a newspaper 
man. To "put over a beat" gives soul satisfac- 
tion, but to be beaten causes poignant feeling of 
another sort. 

There have been some great beats and a multi- 
tude of little ones, but up to the beginning of the 
European war, the greatest beat that was ever 
put over came from a Paris correspondent. 

This was the occasion when Henri de Blowitz, 
the famous representative of the London Times, 
gave the full text of the treaty of Berlin before 
the hour when it was actually signed. That was 
a real beat, not to be classified with the majority 
of beats of later years, which were often scandal- 
ous, more often paltry, and which often caused 
us to wonder whether they were worth the cable 
tolls. 

In ante-bellum discussions, the Paris correspon- 
dents often opined that the coming conflict would 

9 



10 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

open a more important field. At least we would 
no longer chronicle the silly ways of fashion and 
the crazy ways of society. The turf, the manne- 
quin, the Eue de la Paix, and those who drank tea 
at the Pre Catalan would give way to real and 
stirring matters. We all schemed to put over 
a real beat as soon as the war drums began to 
roll and the new Paris was revealed. The old 
Paris, in the minds of American editors, had only 
been an important place for unimportant things. 

Looking back now at the beginnings of Arma- 
geddon, and at the particular corner in which I 
performed a minor role, I can say generally that 
all our schemes went wrong and that there were 
no "beats" of the slightest importance secured 
by anybody. Eemember, I am only speaking of 
Paris and France. There were a few great beats 
elsewhere. There was the famous "scrap of 
paper" interview given to the Associated Press. 
There were some exclusive interviews secured in 
both Germany and England. But France, the 
real theater of action, where beats were expected, 
was quite the equal of Japan in her sudden tight 
sealing of every crevice from which news either 
big or little might leak. 

France had learned several lessons from the 
year 1870, but this one she learned almost too well. 



THE NIGHT ii 

So far as the neutral opinion of the world was 
concerned, it was scarcely known that France had 
an army. Later, but much later, and then very 
gradually, some real stories were passed by the 
censor — but even then very few of them were 
beats. 

But during the hectic week when France went 
to war the censorship was almost overlooked and 
there were a few precious hours during which the 
correspondents and their methods of communica- 
tion were free. The first sign of the censor was 
the shutting off of the telephone between Paris 
and London. It had been my custom to talk with 
our London office nightly in order that the news 
of the two capitals might be checked, and that 
we might not duplicate stories. 

The second night following the events of the 
foregoing chapter I talked to our London bureau 
for the last time. All that day my mind had 
been busy with one idea : ' ' If war is declared, how 
can we beat the censor T' 

The first answer that probably occurred to 
every correspondent was : ' ' Code. ' ' Alas, events 
moved too quickly. A secret code was a matter 
that might have been arranged had we been given 
our expected months of notice, but there was no 
time now. 



12 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

I gave the call for our London office, however, 
with this idea still uppermost in mind. I waited 
a quarter of an hour to be put through. Then I 
heard the voice of my colleague. It sounded 
harassed. I shall never forget his first remark 
after the communication was established. I 
could almost see him pass a hand over a fevered 
brow ; I could almost hear the sigh that I am sure 
accompanied the words which were : 

''My gracious, I never expected to live to see 
such days as these!" 

It was quite natural that he should have said 
just that, but somehow there did not seem any 
fitting reply. Also it seemed rather hopeless to 
talk about codes. So I said: 

*'I am told that we will not be allowed to tele- 
phone after to-night." 

He replied: ** That's a fact. I guess this is 
good-by for a while." He paused — then as an 
afterthought, added: "I think you would better 
just send everything you can from Paris without 
paying any heed to whether London does or not. ' ' 

Inasmuch as a moment had arrived when there 
was only one possible way to do many things, I 
quite agreed with him. 

The conversation lagged. 

"Well, good-by," I shouted. 



THE NIGHT 13 

*'Good-by," he replied, "and good luck." 

That was the end of the telephone as an adjunct 
to transatlantic journalism. I have never spoken 
with our London office from that night. 

After hanging up the receiver I had an idea. 

It did not and does not now seem a particularly- 
brilliant one ; but, again, it was the only possible 
thing to do. I turned to Mr. Duranty and said: 

"We will have a little race with the censor. 
We will crowd everything possible on the cable 
before he gets on the job." 

All the late editions were on my desk. I 
clipped and pasted everything of interest on cable 
forms and sent them to the Bourse. Mr. Duranty 
took them himself, "just to see if there were any 
signs of the censor," as he expressed it. Then I 
began to write, interrupted continually by my 
dozen extra assistants. I had hired every free- 
lance newspaper man I could find — and I had also 
a number of volunteers, young American visitors, 
too interested in events to be in a hurry to get out 
of the city. 

The night was warm and the windows all open. 
The boulevards were dense with shouting people. 
There was no mistaking the cries on this night. 
"A Berlin — A Berlin," echoed above the roar of 
the traffic and the mob. Cuirassiers frequently 



14 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

rode through the streets but the crowd immedi- 
ately surged in behind them. 

At ten o 'clock the concierge mounted to protest 
against the street door being open. She was 
afraid. She was alone in the loge. I told her 
that the business of the office required the doors 
kept unlocked. She went away and in a few 
moments came back with the proprietor of the 
building, whom she had called by telephone. He 
insisted on closing the street door. I told him 
this was a violation of my lease. In view of the 
circumstances he persisted in his demand. I 
wheeled my chair about and said to him: 

' ' This office remains open — all night if I desire. 
It is a newspaper office and we cannot close. If 
you interfere with me I guarantee that I will keep 
a man there, but if necessary that man will be a 
soldier." 

''What do you mean?" he asked, 

"I mean that I will apply to the American Em- 
bassy for the protection of my rights as an 
American citizen." 

He went away and that difficulty ended. 

I turned back to my work. I wrote thousands 
of words that night ; when not writing I was dic- 
tating, and piecing together the reports of my as- 
sistants. 



THE NIGHT 15 

Mr. Duranty returned from the Bourse. His 
clothes were awry and he was trembling with ex- 
citement. He had diverged, in his return trip, to 
the Gare du Nord, to get a story of the stormy 
scenes there — thousands, chiefly Americans, fight- 
ing for places in the trains for England. He had 
been arrested, he explained. Oh, yes, he had been 
surrounded by a mob at the Grare, who spotted 
him as a foreigner, and the police had rescued 
him. He explained his identity and was released. 

At the end of the story he suddenly leaped 
across the room to the window. I leaped at the 
same moment and so did the stenographer. 
Across the boulevard was a store that dealt in 
objects of art. The proprietor was a German. 
During the day he had boarded the place with 
stout planks. As we reached the window the 
sound of splitting and tearing planks sounded 
above even the cries and roars of the angry peo- 
ple. One look and Duranty was out of the office 
and in the street. 

I sat in the window and watched the mob do its 
work. The torn planks were used as battering 
rams through the plate glass, through the expen- 
sive statuary and costly vases. In five minutes 
the place was a ruin. Then the cuirassiers came 
and drove the crowd away. Duranty returned 



i6 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

with the details of the story. I asked him what 
the police had said to the crowd. 

*'A man came out holding a marble Adonis by 
the arm," he replied. ''A cop said to him, 'Be 
good now — be good!' and the chap replied, 'Well, 
if I can't smash it, you smash it!' — So the cop 
took it and leaped upon it with both feet." 

"Write it," I said; "also the Gare du Nord 
story. ' ' 

It was midnight and the uproar was greater 
than ever. Processions blocks long wended 
through the middle of the streets singing the 
"Marseillaise," the "Carmagnole" and other 
fire-eating songs of the Revolution. Through it 
all I worked, and steadily sent messenger after 
messenger to the Bourse with the latest news 
from the various scenes of action. No signs yet 
of the censor. 

About one o'clock the crowd concentrated just 
below my window. The cries grew fiercer and 
louder, with a more terrible note. I went to the 
window. The faces of the mob were turned to an 
upper window of the building next door. Some 
rash voice had shouted from that window a cry 
that no man might shout that night in Paris with 
safety. He had cried: "Hurrah for Germany!" 

I crawled out on my window ledge and watched. 



THE NIGHT 17 

The crowd filled the street completely. They 
watched that upper window, they yelled their rage 
and they battered against a great grilled iron door 
that baffled their efforts. The police tried to dis- 
perse them, but as soon as the street was partly 
cleared they surged back again. They hung about 
that door, their faces turned up, the hate showing 
in their eyes, their mouths open, bellowing forth 
their rage. They waited as patiently as wolves 
that have surrounded a quarry that must come 
out to meet them soon. But the waiting was so 
long that I crawled back from my window ledge 
into the office. 

I finished a despatch that I had compiled from 
various documents given out to the morning 
papers by the Foreign Ministry, and of which I 
had secured a copy. They were an undisputable 
proof thaf Germany meant war on France, for 
they noted a dozen incidents proving that Ger- 
man mobilization had been under way for days. 
The dawn was breaking as I pushed my chair from 
the desk. 

I told the stenographer and other assistants to 
go home and get some sleep — not to report again 
until late afternoon. Duranty, who, like myself, 
kept no hours but worked always while there was 
work to do, sauntered into the private room. He 



i8 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

had counted the words of copy that had been filed 
that night — nearly twenty thousand. 

The yelling of the mob below had given way to 
low rumbling. We had ceased to think about it. 
We lighted our pipes and yawned. 

*' Shall we cut it out for a few hours?" Duranty 
asked. 

'* Think so," I replied. ^'We will hunt a cab 
and go home until noon." 

I stifled another yawn and relighted my pipe. 

A scream came from the sidewalk — my pipe 
dropped to the floor and we were out on the win- 
dow ledge. 

A man was struggling in the middle of the 
street. He was the man who had so rashly 
shouted *'Vive I'Allemagne" from the window. 

He fell and passed out of sight under a mass of 
bodies. The crowd opened once. The man 
struggled to his knees. His face was covered 
with blood. Again we lost sight of him. Then 
cuirassiers charged down the street. One of them 
lifted a broken body across his saddle. That 
story never reached New York. The censor was 
on the job. 



CHAPTEE III 

HEERICK 

On the morning of September 3, 1914, an ''of- 
ficial statement," so called, was inserted by the 
American Ambassador, Myron T. Herrick, in the 
Paris edition of the New York Herald. This an- 
nouncement read: 

"The American Ambassador advises, as he has 
done before, that all Americans who can go, leave 
Paris, for obvious reasons." 

The French Grovernment was then most anx- 
ious to get every foreigner possible out of Paris. 
A siege was imminent and the food question 
might become very grave. Preparations were 
made for taking out the British residents. Mr. 
Herrick arranged with General Gallieni, then the 
Military Governor, for trains to transport a thou- 
sand of them a day, the British Government fur- 
nishing the money. 

I now have Mr. Herrick 's permission to state 
for the first time, that the American Embassy was 
then in receipt of a telegram from Mr. Gerard, 

19 



20 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

our Ambassador in Berlin, in whicli lie said in 
substance that the German General Staff ''ad- 
vises you and all Americans to leave Paris at 
once by Eouen and Havre. ' ' 

For a considerable length of time there was 
practically no doubt that there would be a siege, 
and very many believed it would be followed by 
a German entry into Paris. What happened at 
Louvain seemed reasonably likely to be repeated 
at the Louvre; in fact, it was well known to the 
Government that the German plan was to blow up 
Paris section by section until the French were 
forced to capitulate. 

When the ministry changed and Delcasse and 
Millerand came into power, there was a change 
also in policy, and it was determined that the city 
should be defended. 

On the morning of September second, the 
President of the Eepublic summoned Mr. Her- 
rick to the Elysee, to thank him for remaining in 
Paris. He added that "We propose to defend 
the city at the outer gates, at the inner gates, and 
by the valor of our troops, and there will be no 
surrender. ' ' 

Under these circumstances the advice to Ameri- 
cans was inserted in the Herald. I called on Mr. 
Herrick immediately after the notice was written. 



HERRICK 21 

He said to me: ''What explanation can be made 
if no such warning is given, and if there is a 
siege, with many killed and wounded, in face of 
the situation as it is to-day, and of the warning 
telegram I have received from Berlin?" 

The question has since been asked, sometimes 
critically, as to why this warning was given, since 
after all the Germans did not enter Paris. I 
have therefore given these heretofore unpub- 
lished facts at the beginning of this chapter, in 
order that it shall be known just how faithfully 
our ex-ambassador guarded his trust to the 
American people, to give an insight into the 
character of the m.an who was easily the most 
remarkable figure in Paris at the beginning of 
the war, who was not only the rock upon which 
the thousands of Americans leaned so heavily, 
but was also an outstanding favorite of the Paris 
public. 

On one of the nights just preceding mobiliza- 
tion, when the boulevards were at the zenith of 
their frenzy, I looked out my office window and 
saw an open carriage, with footmen wearing am- 
bassadorial livery and cockades, driving slowly 
along the Boulevard des Capucines. Voices 
snarled in the crowd. Certain ambassadors were 
not popular in Paris in those days; so just who 



22 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

might this ambassador be, at that moment strain- 
ing his eyes to read a paper under the electric 
arc lights'? 

He looked up as he heard the hoots directed at 
himself — then smiled and shouted something at 
the crowd. 

"Ah, I'Ambassadeur Americain!" they passed 
the word. Then rose cries of ''Vive I'Amerique! 
— Vive Herrick!" Men jumped on the carriage 
steps and Mr. Herrick shook their hands. 
Banter was exchanged on all sides, and cheers fol- 
lowed him down the boulevard. The Paris public 
felt then what they came to know later, that he 
liked them almost as much as ''his Americans." 
They knew, when the French Government went 
to Bordeaux, that the American Embassy re- 
mained — that the eye of the great neutral repub- 
lic would see what happened should the Germans 
enter their city. 

The later significant comment made by Mr. Her- 
rick, when a German taube dropped bombs on a 
spot he had just passed, that "A dead ambassa- 
dor might be more useful than a live one," has 
been written in the history of France. And when 
the war is over I believe that the names of Frank- 
lin, Jefferson and Herrick will constitute a trium- 
virate of American ambassadors to France, that 



HERRICK 23 

all French school children of the future will be 
taught to remember and respect. 

I passed much time at the Embassy during the 
first weeks of war, for it was a real center of 
news for an American newspaper. And I re- 
member quite distinctly a statement that I made 
at home during one of the rare moments when I 
was able to reach it and which I repeated many 
times afterwards. It was a simple ''Thank God 
that Myron T. Herrick is the American Ambassa- 
dor." To the mild inquiry "why?" I could only 
say: "Because he is such an honest-to-God sort 
of man." 

Mr. Herrick was undoubtedly shrewd in his 
friendships for newspapermen and he was clever 
in his use of them. But he always knew that we 
understood his cleverness and he always saw to 
it that we got value received in the way of 
"copy" for the praise that was often bestowed 
upon him as the result of it. 

Mr. Herrick often said to us, in a manner quite 
casual, things that he had thought over carefully 
before our arrival. He knew just how those 
cables would look in the newspaper columns, and 
what the effect would be upon the reader, long 
before he handed out the subject matter. But if 
I ever argued to myself that I was receiving a 



24 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

rather intime portrait of a clever and an astute 
diplomat, I could always honestly say, especially 
during the eventful days I am attempting to de- 
scribe, that he was one man in Paris whose poise 
was undisturbed by the rapid succession of giant 
shocks, and that all the things which he did and 
said were to his everlasting credit and honor. 

The American correspondents were sometimes 
referred to as ''journalistic attaches" of the Em- 
bassy. We went there regularly, and it was 
ordered that our cards be taken to ''His Excel- 
lency" the moment that we arrived. 

He sometimes revealed to us "inside informa- 
tion" which, had we been able to print it, would 
have been, to say the least, sensational. On one 
occasion when he did not extract the suspicion of 
a promise that I preserve secrecy, Mr. Her rick 
told me a story which, if published to-day, would 
cause one of the biggest sensations of the war. 
But it is a story that can be printed only when 
the war is over, and perhaps not then, unless Mr. 
Herrick himself then gives permission. 

Since leaving Paris, however, he has "released 
for publication" some things that could not for 
various reasons be printed at that time. For in- 
stance, when the French Government moved to 
Bordeaux, the American banks in Paris were in- 



HERRICK 25 

clined to follow them and in fact did send consid- 
erable amounts of money there. Mr. Herrick 
told them that he wished them to remain; that 
their services were necessary to carry on the 
relief work for the German and Austrian refu- 
gees, and other charities of which he was in 
charge. He told them they might use the Em- 
bassy cellar for their money, that there was a row 
of vaults across the cellar and under the side- 
walk. At one time, when the German peril was 
most extreme those vaults contained more than 
three million dollars in gold, which was guarded 
night and day by six marines from the U. S. S. 
Tennessee. 

Also, in order to avoid panic, we could not print 
at that time, that the Embassy expected any day 
a rush of refugees; Mrs. Herrick had stocked 
the Embassy cellars with provisions for a thou- 
sand persons for several weeks. Mrs. Herrick, 
too, proved herself an excellent executive, for not 
only did she take this entire burden of preparing 
for the Americans, should the Germans enter 
Paris, but at the same time she organized a hos- 
pital at the American Art Club and vigorously 
assisted French as well as American charities. 

I feel now that a sufficient period has passed for 
the publication in more detail of some of the 



26 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

memorable interviews that took place in the pri- 
vate room of the Embassy. At the time some of 
them were printed in the form of short cable- 
grams, but more often lost in the rush of events. 

I shall never forget a talk that took place just 
two days before' the declaration of war. 

Mr. Herrick was sitting at his big, flat-topped 
desk smoking a cigarette and looking out of the 
open window. He waved his hand toward the 
cigarette box as he greeted me and pointed at a 
chair. He continued looking out of the window, 
but I knew that he saw nothing. There were no 
preliminaries; only one subject interested every 
mind in Paris. 

"What do you know!" I asked. 

''It's bad," he replied. 

*'Any fresh developments!" 

"None you don't already know — but come 
again to-night and I'll tell you anything I learn." 

"What will you do with the Americans — the 
town is full of them! What about them if it 
comes!" I next asked. We always referred to 
the war as just "it." 

"Take care of 'em," he announced briefly — 
then a pause; and he laughed. "Don't know yet 
that they'll need it — let's hope it won't come." 

"But you expect it!" 



HERRICK 27 

He looked me directly in the face as he slowly- 
answered : 

*'Yes — it's only a question of days — or hours." 

We both drew long breaths. 

''And — " I began; but he went on talking 
slowly and heavily. 

''It's what the Orient has waited for — waited 
for all these centuries — the breaking down of Oc- 
cidental civilization — " He drew himself up with 
a jerk. "But that's too much like pessimism. 
Have a cigarette. I've got to keep smiling, you 
know. That's part of an ambassador's job." 

And he did keep smiling. There were few mo- 
ments during all those days when there was not 
a smile upon his face and an honest welcome in 
his manner. But once I saw him angry. 

He was furiously angry at certain information 
I had brought to the Embassy. It was the first 
day after the military order that all foreigners 
residing in Paris should register at their local 
police commissariats within twenty-four hours. 
The city was no longer a city officially. It was 
an intrenched camp. Only military law pre- 
vailed. The penalty for not obeying orders was 
severe, and for the thousands of Americans to 
obey the order in question was manifestly impos- 
sible. I myself had no police permit — not even 



28 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

a passport. I had no time to go near a police 
station. My wife telephoned that at our commis- 
sariat the line of waiting foreigners was about 
eight hundred. She flatly declined to take her 
turn — permit or no permit. I suggested that she 
go home; but later I heard disquieting rumors, 
that there had been several arrests of foreigners 
unable to show a permis de sejour. I did not 
blame the police, for the city was full of spies; 
but I could see no good reason why the Americans 
should suffer and I went full speed to the Em- 
bassy to put the facts before the Ambassador. 

His face changed color. His hands gripped the 
sides of his chair. 

*'Say that over again," he said quietly. 

I repeated. Suddenly both his hands left the 
arms of his chair, and doubled into fists, crushed 
down upon his desk. 

**By God," he shouted, half rising, his jaw 
thrust forward. ''By God, they won't arrest any 
of my people." 

He pushed a button on the desk, at the same 
time calling the name of one of the Embassy sec- 
retaries. Eapidly and explosively outlining the 
situation, the Ambassador finished with the 
order : 

*'Now you get to the Foreign Office quick; and 



HERRICK 29 

let them know that if one American is arrested 
for not having his papers, until this rush at the 
commissariat is over, it means trouble — ^that 
they'll answer to me for it." 

I believe this incident more correctly illustrates 
the character of the ex-ambassador than anything 
one could say or write about him. When he came 
first to France, with a reputation as a successful 
Ohio politician, no one knew whether he was a 
real diplomat or not. I do not believe Mr. Her- 
rick knew himself ; but I do not believe that either 
then or later he ever thought much about it. He 
had sufficient savoir faire to make him greatly 
admired and respected by the French people, and 
his record proves whether or not he was a good 
diplomat. But there were moments, such as the 
one I have described, when he did not stop to con- 
sider whether or not an ambassador was sup- 
posed to be a diplomat. 

I can picture other ambassadors I have known 
going over in their minds the rules of diplomacy 
and then delicately, oh, how delicately, approach- 
ing the subject. Herrick sometimes rode rough- 
shod over all rules of diplomacy. He did it suc- 
cessfully, too — for there were no Americans ar- 
rested in France for not having their permis de 
sejour. 



30 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

I have seen multi-millionaires standing in line 
at the Embassy, waiting their turn to get tempo- 
rary passports; and I have seen powerful politi- 
cians and trust magnates waiting in the hall 
outside that famous private room, while Mr. Her- 
riek talked to a little school teacher from Ne- 
braska who had arrived earlier in the morning 
and secured a position ahead of them in the line. 

I have seen him walk through the salons of his 
residence, which he kept open night and day to 
hundreds of Americans who felt safer just to be 
there, smiling, shaking hands and telling stories, 
although I knew he had not slept for twenty-four 
hours. And I have waked him up at midnight 
to tell him details concerning American refugees 
and their suffering which only he could alleviate 
and which he did alleviate without sleeping again 
until the work was done. 

I witnessed many things in company with Mr. 
Herrick behind the scenes of the mighty drama 
as it was unfolding; most of them I am sure it 
would not be good ''diplomacy" on my part to 
repeat. But all of them combined to make more 
fervent my thanks to the Almighty that in those 
days Myron T. Herrick was the American Am- 
bassador to France. 



CHAPTER IV 

LES AMERICAINS 

My first and most poignant recollection of the 
thousands of Americans caught in France at 
the outbreak of war is in connection with a cable 
containing some five thousand of their names, 
which was killed by the censor on the ground that 
it was code. I worked hard on that cable, too. 
I compiled it in the hope that it would relieve the 
anxiety of friends and relatives at home. But 
the censor, after pondering over the Smiths, 
Jones, Adamses and Wilsons in the list, believed 
that I had evolved a scheme to outwit the au- 
thorities and that important war news would be 
published if it were allowed to pass. 

I have lived long enough in France to know 
when not to argue. In this case I was meekly 
and respectfully silent. The censor said it was 
code — therefore it must be code. He even re- 
fused to pass a private message to my editors, 
who had asked for all the names of Americans 
that I could get, in which I said that I had tried 

31 



32 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

to meet their wishes but had failed. This, too, 
the censor thought had a hidden meaning. 

The story of the Americans alone would have 
been almost the biggest that a newspaper man 
ever had to handle, bad it not been for the fact 
that after all they were only incidental to a far 
bigger matter. Naturally they did not consider 
[that they could be of lesser importance than any- 
thing. Also, the New York editors thought them 
almost, if not quite, as important as the declara- 
tion of war. Unfortunately ne"wspaper corre- 
spondents, even Americans, located in the capital 
of a belligerent power, had officially to think with 
the authorities, and let the story of the Americans 
take what place it could find in the jumble of 
greater and lesser news. True, their story was 
covered — after a fashion — and the world knew 
what a real sort of a man the American Ambassa- 
dor was in the way he protected his people. But 
most of the tragedy and nearly all of the comedy 
— much of it was comedy — was lost in the roll of 
drums. 

In those days Europe was for Europeans. As 
I recall the Americans now, it seems to me that 
no nation finding herself in such a position as 
France, could have treated so patiently, so un- 
selfishly, so kindly, as she, the strangers withiu 



LES AM^RICAINS 33 

her gates. As for the strangers, alas, many of 
them felt distinctly aggrieved that war should 
come to spoil their summer holidays and bitterly 
resented their predicament. They ignored the 
fact that France was fighting for her life. 

Their predicament, after all, was not so seri- 
ous. After all, no American died; no American 
was wounded; no American even starved. Their 
troubles were really only inconveniences; but 
none of them would believe that Uhlans would not 
probably ride down the Champs Elysees the fol- 
lowing morning, shouting "hands up" to the 
population. 

I visited one afternoon the office of the White 
Star Line, jammed as usual with white-faced, 
anxious-voiced Americans seeking passage home. 
The veteran Paris manager of the line was behind 
the counter. He was speaking to a frightened 
woman in tones sufficiently clear to be heard by 
everybody. 

"I speak from personal experience, madam," 
he told the woman. "I know that there will be 
plenty of room for everybody just as soon as 
mobilization is over. In two weeks the situation 
will be much easier." 

''How do you know?" was the question. 
*'What is your experience?" 



34 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

His answer should have brought assurance, had 
assurance been at all possible. 

*'I was here in eighteen-seventy," he replied. 

The prediction was nearly right. It took 
longer than two weeks to clear the ways; but 
when the battle of the Marne began, almost the 
last batch of tourists were at Havre, awaiting 
their boat. 

The American newspaper correspondents who 
remained were looked upon as fools. The tour- 
ists could not understand our point of view that 
perhaps, after all, Paris instead of Belgium 
would produce the biggest story of the war. 

I was on one amusing occasion the '^ horrible 
example" of the man who would not leave town, 
in a little sidewalk drama whose stellar role was 
played by one of the best known American actors. 
On one of the first evenings after mobilization 
I decided to go to our consulate, then in the 
Avenue de 1 'Opera, in order to learn the number 
of people applying for aid and learn if possible 
the approximate number of American tourists in 
Paris. 

It was late. When I reached the consulate it 
was closed, but a large crowd remained waiting 
on the sidewalk. I learned from the concierge 
that the staff had departed for the night. As I 



LES AMERICAINS 35 

turned to go I met William H. Crane, the come- 
dian, entering tlie building. I told him the place 
was shut, and we stood in the doorway talking. 

The benevolent face and gray hair of Mr. 
Crane marked him with the crowd, and they im- 
mediately decided that if he was not the Consul 
General himself, he was at least a person of high- 
est importance in the affairs of our Government. 
A group of school teachers timidly approached. 
I spoke to him quickly in French. 

''You can act off the stage, can't you?" 

He muttered something about getting away 
quickly, but I seized his coat lapel, saying: 
''Look here, there are many persons in this line 
and they have picked you out to be the big chief. 
The consulate is closed and if you don't play your 
part they will stand here all night. They are 
desperate." 

Crane hesitated — then walked down the line, 
hearing each tale of woe and giving advice. He 
remained an hour, until the last question was 
asked and the last tourist satisfied. But he in- 
sisted that I remain with him. He told them all 
that I was so unfortunate as to live in Paris, that 
I had a house and family there, and that I had 
no possible chance to get out. And so, he argued, 
how much better off were they than "this mis- 



36 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

erable person," for they would surely get away 
in few days or weeks at the latest. As they 
did. 

My last recollection of les Americains with 
which the word poignant might be used, was the 
morning before the battle of the Marne. It ap- 
peared certain to all of us who remained that the 
entry of the Germans could be only a question of 
hours. I, however, was fairly happy that day, 
for at four o'clock that morning my family had 
left the city for safety. The American Ambassa- 
dor had told me confidentially something I al- 
ready knew — that Paris was no longer a safe 
place for women and children. I had set forth 
my own belief for days, but my wife had remained. 
However, she was a great believer in the Ameri- 
can Ambassador. So when I gave her the *' con- 
fidential information" — and I set it forth strong 
— she consented to go to England. 

I walked the streets that morning feeling a load 
off my mind. I had been up all night, getting my 
little family off and inasmuch as the day was too 
important for sleep, I took a refreshing bath and 
then strolled along the empty Boulevard des 
Capucines. I had found a shady nook on a side- 
walk terrasse when some one touched me on the 
arm. I turned and looked into the terrified faces 



LES AMERICAINS 37 

of an American friend and his wife. "What are 
you doing here?" they inquired anxiously. 

**Why, I live here," I replied. "Won't you 
sit down and have something ?" 

"Oh, no," the man answered. "We are on our 
way to the train; we were in the country when 
the trouble began. It was awful. They arrested 
us as spies. We only got here this morning. We 
have seats in the last train for Marseilles and will 
sail from there." 

"Yes," I said, somewhat uninterestedly I fear, 
"but you have lots of time — sit down." 

My friend grasped my shoulder. "Man, are 
you crazy?" he cried. "You look as if you were 
going to play tennis. You come along with us to 
America. ' ' 

"Can't do it," I replied. "I've got to stay." 

They stared at me silently. The woman took 
my hand. 

"Good-by," she whispered. 

The man took my hand in both of his. 
' * Good-by, ' ' he quavered. " I '11 tell them in New 
York that I saw you." 

"Do," I replied. 

I was not at all courageous in remaining in 
Paris. I did not remain because I so desired. I 
remained because, as a newspaper man appointed 



38 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

to cover the news of Paris, I could not run away. 
Then, also, the biggest news that perhaps Paris 
would ever know seemed so near. I bought a 
number of American flags that day and hung 
them outside my windows. 

I felt more fortunate than my fellow Americans 
who had gone away. 



CHAPTER V 

WAE 

A NIGHT spent sending despatches — a yelling, 
singing mob beneath the windows making it al- 
most impossible for messengers to cross to the 
cable office; — a dawn passed in riding from one 
ministry to another, wherever any portion of the 
war councils might still be in session; — and a 
forenoon spent in a Turkish bath, brought me 
near to the fateful hour on Saturday, August 1st, 
when France went to war. 

I went to the bath establishment for sleep; but 
insistently I heard the voices of the night before 
— the yells, the cheers and the ''Marseillaise." 
They were just as audible in that Moorish room, 
with dim lights and a trickling marble fountain. 
There was no such thing as sleep. 

I went to my office and found a sum of gold 
awaiting me. I was glad to get that gold. I had 
sent an urgent letter in order to get it, in which 
I used such phrases as "difficulty of getting 
cash," ''moratoriums, etc." My debtor wrote 
back, "What is a moratorium?" but he sent the 

39 



40 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

cash. It saved the situation for me during the 
next month, while the financial stringency lasted. 
I went over to my bank, The Equitable Trust 
Company, to deposit it. Mr. Laurence Slade, the 
manager, was in the hall. 

''Is it safe to leave this with you," I asked, 
''or must I go clinking around town with it hung 
in a leather belt festooned about my person?" 

"Leave it," he suggested. 

"But the moratorium?" I inquired. 

"Won't take advantage of it with any of our 
customers and we will keep open unless a shell 
blows the place up." 

I thrust it into his hands, thankful that I had 
always used an American banking institution in 
Paris. All French banks took advantage of the 
moratorium the moment it was declared. 

On the boulevards the crowds were thinner than 
the days before. I stood watching them idly. 
Every one seemed to realize that the declaration 
of war was hanging just over our heads. There 
was less excitement, less feeling of all kind. I 
said to myself, "Well, it's coming, the greatest 
story in all the world and there isn't a line to be 
written." It was just too big to be written then 
— and except the official bulletins of marching 
events I know of nothing that was sent to any 



WAR 41 

newspaper on that day either remarkable from 
the standpoint of writing or facts. 

After idling along the boulevard for a few mo- 
ments, I decided to go to my usual hunting ground 
for news — the Embassy. I hailed a taxi, and just 
as I opened the door on one side to enter, a 
bearded Frenchman opened the door opposite. I 
stated that the taxi was mine, and he declared 
emphatically that it belonged to him. The chauf- 
feur evidently saw us both at the same instant 
and could not make up his mind as to our re- 
spective rights. A crowd began to gather, as the 
Frenchman, recognizing that I was a foreigner, 
began haranguing the chauffeur. 

"What do you mean I" he cried. *'Do you 
propose to let foreigners have taxis in times like 
this? Taxis are scarce." 

The crowd began to mutter ''foreigner." In a 
minute they would have declared that I was a 
German. But I had an inspiration. 

*'I want to go to the American Embassy," I 
told the Frenchman. "If you are going that di- 
rection why not come with me? We can share 
the cab." 

I have always maintained that a Frenchman, 
no matter how excited he is — and when he is ex- 
cited he is often almost impossible — will always 



42 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

listen to reason if you can get his attention. My 
proposition was so entirely unusual that imme- 
diately he listened, then smiled and stepped into 
the cab, motioning me to do the same. 

"L'Amhassade Americaine/' he bellowed to 
the chauffeur, and as we drove away he was ac- 
cepting a cigar from my case. 

He explained both his excitement and his hurry. 
When the mobilization call came it would be 
necessary for him to join his regiment on the first 
day. I wanted to tell the chauffeur to drive to 
his home first, but he would not allow this, and 
when we arrived at the Embassy it was actually 
with difficulty that I forced upon him the payment 
for the taxi up to that point. 

I was soon in the famous private room of 
conference and confidence. The Ambassador, as 
usual, was sitting with his face to the open win- 
dow, and smoking a cigarette. 

I placed my hat and stick upon the desk and 
seated myself in silence. We remained quiet for 
quite a full minute. Finally Mr. Herrick said, 
with a short laugh : 

''Well, there does not seem anything more to 
talk about, does there?" 

"No," I replied, ''we seem to be at that point. 
There isn't anything even to write about." 



WAR 43 

A door behind us opened quietly, and Mr. Rob- 
ert Woods Bliss, the first secretary of the Em- 
bassy, entered. He walked to the desk. Neither 
the Ambassador nor I turned. Mr. Bliss stood 
silent for a moment, then said quietly : 

''It's come." 

"Ah," breathed Mr. Herrick. 

"Yes," replied Mr. Bliss, "the Foreign Office 
has just telephoned. The news will be on the 
streets in a minute." 

It was the biggest moment, perhaps, the world 
will ever know. It was so big that it stunned us 
all. 

I rose and took my hat and stick. 

"Well," I ejaculated somewhat uncertainly. 

"Well," said the Ambassador in much the 
same manner. 

Then we shook hands; and like a person in a 
trance I walked out of the room and down to the 
street. 

The isolated Rue de Chaillot was quite de- 
serted; I walked down to the Place de I'Alma to 
find a cab. There the scene was different. Cabs 
by the dozen whirled along, but none heeded my 
signals. A human wave was rolling over the 
city. Fiacres, street cars, taxis filled with men 
and baggage were sweeping along. Almost every 



44 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

veMcle was headed for one or another of the rail- 
way stations. Already the extra editions had 
notified the populace of the state of affairs and 
mobilization was under way. 

Finally an empty fiacre came along and I sig- 
naled the driver, jumping aboard at the same 
moment. Just as an hour earlier when I signaled 
a cab, a Frenchman stepped in at the oppo- 
site side. Only, this time, the Frenchman wasted 
no words concerning his rights to the car- 
riage. 

He bowed. ''I go to the Place de 1 'Opera," he 
said pleasantly. 

I bowed. ''I go to exactly the same spot," I 
replied tactfully. 

We sat down and he directed the driver. We 
remained silent as we drove down the Cours la 
Eeine until we came opposite the Esplanade of 
the Invalides. The sun was setting behind the 
golden dome over the tomb of Napoleon. Then 
my companion spoke : 

*'I will take the subway at the Opera station 
and go to my home. It will be the last time. I 
join my regiment to-morrow." 

I looked at him for a moment, then asked curi- 
ously: "How do you feel about it I Tell me — 
are you glad — and are you confident?" 



WAR 45 

He looked me straight in the eye. ''I am 
glad," he answered. ''We are all glad — glad 
that the waiting and the disappointments, the 
humiliations of forty-four years, are over." 

''And will you win — ^you think?" 

"I do not know, but we will fight well — that is 
all I can say, and this time we are not fighting 
alone." 

We arrived at the Opera. He jumped to the 
sidewalk and put out his hand. "Good-by," he 
said, smiling. "May we meet again." I wrung 
his hand and watched him dive down the stairs 
to the subway station. 

I remained at the office as the afternoon slipped 
into evening and evening into night, writing my 
despatches on the actual outbreak of war. As I 
sat by the window, I suddenly realized that in- 
stead of the dazzling illumination of the boule- 
vards I was gazing into the darkness. I investi- 
gated this phenomenon and I wrote another des- 
patch upon the new aspect of the city of Paris 
on the first night of the war. It was a cable de- 
scribing the death of the old "Ville Lumiere" 
and the birth of the new French spirit. For not 
only were the boulevards dark, but the voices of 
the city were hushed. It began to rain — a gentle, 
warm, summer rain; the gendarmes put on their 



46 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

rubber capes and hoods and melted into tbe 
shadows. 

I went out to take my despatches to the cable 
office. The streets were quiet as death. A for- 
lorn fiacre ambled dismally out of a gloomy side 
street, the bell on the horse's neck giving forth 
a hollow-sounding tinkle. I climbed in. The 
driver turned immediately off the boulevard into 
a back street, when suddenly the decrepit horse 
fell to his haunches in the slippery road. At 
once I felt, for I could scarcely see, four silent 
figures surrounding us. The night before I 
would have scented danger ; but now I had a dif- 
ferent feeling entirely. The four shadowy fig- 
ures remained silent, at attention, as the driver 
hauled the kicking and plunging horse to his feet. 

*'He thinks of the war," said the driver. 

A quiet chuckle came from the quartet, and 
I could now distinguish that they were gendarmes. 

"You travel late," one of them said, addressing 
me. 

"La presse," I replied briefly. 

"Bienf was the reply. We drove down the 
dark street, I astonished at this city that had 
found itself; this nation that had got quietly and 
determinately to business, at the very signal of 
conflict, to the amazement of the entire world. 



PART TWO 
THE GREATEST STOEY 




WYTHE WILLIAMS OF THE "KEW YORK TIMES' 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ACTUALITY 

On the sidewalk terrasse of a little cafe a few 
doors from the American Embassy I was one of 
a quartet of newspaper men on one of the final 
afternoons of August, 1914. 

War news, thanks to the censor, had lapsed in 
volume and intensity ; but the troubles of refugee 
Americans still made our cables bulky, and we 
continued to pass much time at the Embassy or 
in its vicinity. 

A man wabbled wearily down the street on a 
bicycle. I recognized him as a "special corre- 
spondent" who had called on me ten days before, 
asking advice as to where he should apply for cre- 
dentials permitting him to describe battles. He 
later disappeared into the then vague territory 
known as the "zone of military activity," with- 
out any papers authorizing the trip. 

He leaned his bicycle against a tree and joined 
US. He had little to say as to where he had been, 
but told us that he had been a prisoner of the 
British army for several days. He mentioned a 

49 



50 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

town near the Belgian frontier wliere, as he 
described the situation, 'Hhe entire army came 
piling in before he had a chance to pile out. ' ' 

I do not know what made me suspect that Mr. 
Special Correspondent was then the possessor of 
big news, for he gave not the slightest suggestion 
of the direction in which the British army was 
traveling. But I suspected him. In a few min- 
utes he left us to call on the Ambassador. Later, 
when I saw him ride away from the Embassy on 
his bicycle, I sent in my card. 

Mr. Herrick was as bland as usual, but there 
was a worried look on his face. I wasted no 
time. 

''Mr. called on you this afternoon," I 

said, naming the special correspondent. ''He 
told you some real news. ' ' 

"Yes, that is so," the Ambassador replied. 
"How did you guess itf" 

I explained that I only had a suspicion, and the 
Ambassador continued : 

"He cannot cable it, you need not worry. He 
will not attempt it. He has gone now to write 
an account for the mail. He told me so that I 
could make some plans." 

"Some plans r' I interrupted. "The news is 
bad then. ' ' 



THE ACTUALITY 51 

Mr. Herrick eyed me keenly for a moment — 
then lie leaned over his desk and spoke in a whis- 
per. He kept the confidences of the "special cor- 
respondent," but he gave me information that sup- 
plemented it, which he had from his own sources. 
He told me no names — no details — but he gave me 
the news appearing in the official communiques 
three full days later; — that the British had been 
forced back at Mons — the French defeated at 
Charleroi, and that the entire Allied line was 
retreating. I did not learn where the line was. 
But as I left the Embassy I realized that France 
was invaded ; I realized that the greatest story in 
the world was at hand. The fear was upon me, 
although I failed to grasp it entirely, that this 
was a story which in its entirety would never be 
written for a newspaper. 

Mr. Special Correspondent passed two days in 
the seclusion of his hotel writing a splendid chap- 
ter for which he received high praise, but he was 
unable to get it printed until several weeks after 
the entire story had gone into history. Other 
correspondents were able to write half and quar- 
ter chapters which in a few instances received 
publication while the story was in progress. 

I sat at my desk that night pondering on how 
to cable some inkling of my information to 



52 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

America. I confess that I almost wished the cable 
was cut and the loose ends lost on the bottom of 
the Atlantic. 

I studied the map of Europe facing me on the 
wall. Sending a courier to England was as use- 
less as cabling direct, for the English censor was 
equally severe as the French. A code message 
was under censorial ban. A courier aboard the 
Sud-express might have filed the news from Spain 
or Portugal but the mobilization plans of General 
Joffre had arranged that there would be. no Sud- 
express for some time. 

There were undoubtedly other correspondents 
who knew as much concerning the state of affairs 
as I. Many British correspondents, without cre- 
dentials, were dodging about the armies, getting 
into captivity and out again. Several American 
correspondents were in Belgium following the 
Germans as best they could. But none of them 
was at the end of a cable. Had they been they 
would have been quite as helpless as I. For had 
I been able that night to use the cable as I desired, 
I would have beaten the press of the world by 
three full days with the story of the danger that 
threatened Paris. 

The next night, although I was completely 
ignorant whether the news was then known in 



THE ACTUALITY 53 

America, I tried to beat the censor at his own 
game. I succei^ded to the extent of having my 
despatch passed, but unfortunately it was not 
understood in the home office of my newspaper. 
This was my scheme : 

During the day rumors of disaster began to 
spread; but the Paris papers printed nothing of 
the truth, and officially the Allied armies con- 
tinued to hold the Belgian frontier. That night 
refugees from French cities began entering Paris 
at the Gare du Nord. 

I began an innocent despatch that seemed hardly 
worth the cable tolls. It ambled along, with cum- 
brous sentences and involved grammar, describing 
American war charities. Then without what in 
cable parlance is known as a ''full stop," which 
indicates a complete break in the sense of the 
reading matter, I inserted the words ''refugees 
crowding gare du nord tonight from points south 
of Lille," and continued the despatch with more 
material of the sort with which it began. 

I went home hoping for the best and wondering 
if I had made myself sufficiently clear to arouse 
the suspicion of the copy reader on the other side 
of the ocean who handled my copy. If I had I 
knew that those eleven words would be printed in 
the largest display type the following moraing. 



54 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Two weeks later, when tlie next batch of news- 
papers reached Paris, I read those words with 
interest. They were all there, hnt carefully buried 
in the story of war charities exactly where I had 
placed them. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE FIELD OF GLOEY 

The battle of the Marne was fought by the 
Allies in the direct interest of the city of Paris. 
The result was the city's salvation. At the time, 
only a small percentage of the inhabitants knew 
anything about it. But as all the world knows 
now, the battlefield of the Marne was the first 
field of glory for the Allied armies in the great 
European war. When the war is over, the sight- 
seeing motors will reach it in two hours, prob- 
ably starting from the corner of the Avenue de 
.1 'Opera and the Rue de la Paix — a street that by 
now might have a different name had it not been 
for the thousands who died only a few miles 
away. 

On one of the first days of September, 1914, 
the few journalists who remained in Paris gath- 
ered at the Cafe Napolitain early in the after- 
noon, instead of at the aperitif hour. The Cafe 
Napolitain, around the corner from the sight- 
seeing motor stand, is the rendezvous for jour- 
nalists, and always has been. At the aperitif 

55 



56 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

hour — just before dinner — you may see all the 
best-known figures in the French journalistic 
world, also the correspondents of the London and 
New York press,- seated on its sidewalk terrasse. 

I sat on the terrasse on that never to be forgot- 
ten afternoon of September. We were mostly 
Englishmen and Americans. The majority of our 
French confreres were serving in their regiments. 
Some of them, with whom we had argued only five 
weeks before concerning the trial of Madame Cail- 
laux, were now lying on the fields of Charleroi and 
Mons. Some of the Englishmen had decided, 
because of the rumored orders of the Kaiser con- 
cerning the fate of captured British journalists, 
that Bordeaux was a better center for news than 
Paris, and had followed the Grovernment to their 
new capital, on the anniversary of Sedan. Sev- 
eral of the Americans had also left town, but in 
order to better follow the movements of the Allied 
armies. Owing to the vigorous unemotionalism 
of General Joffre, none of them was any nearer 
the 'Afield of operations" than we who sat on the 
Cafe terrasse. 

I doubt if ever a world capital presented such 
a scene, or ever will again, as Paris on that after- 
noon. The day itself was perfect — glorious sum- 
mer, not hot — just pleasantly warm. The sun 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 57 

hung over the city casting straight shadows of the 
full leaves, clown on the tree lined sidewalk. But 
there was not an automobile, nor carriage, scarcely- 
even a person in the boulevards. The city was 
completely still. It had seen in the three days 
previous probably the greatest exodus in the his- 
tory of the world. The ordinary population had 
shrunk over a million. The last of the American 
tourists left that morning for Havre. The rail- 
road communications to the north were in the 
hands of the German army. There were no tele- 
graph communications. Even the telephone was 
rigidly restricted. The censor made the sending 
of cables almost an impossibility. We were in a 
city detached — apart from the rest of the world. 

That morning, at the headquarters of the mili- 
tary government, we were advised to get out 
quickly — on that same day in fact — or take our 
own chances by remaining. Possibly all the 
bridges and roads leading out of the city might 
be blown up before next morning. Uhlans had 
been seen in the forest of Montmorency, only ten 
miles away. It seemed that Paris, which has sup- 
plied so much drama to the world's history, was 
about to add another chapter, and the odds were 
that it would be a final one. 

So, as I have said, I sat with my fellow jour- 



58 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

nalists on the terrasse of the Cafe Napolitain that 
fateful afternoon — and waited. That is why we 
were there — to wait. Several times we thought 
our waiting was rewarded, and we strained our 
ears. For we were waiting to hear the guns — the 
guns of the German attack. Through that entire 
afternoon, not one of us, singly or in partnership, 
would have offered ten cents for the city of Paris. 
We felt in our souls that it was doomed. It was 
an afternoon to have lived — even though nothing 
happened. 

Toward nightfall we learned that the German 
forces had suddenly diverted their march to the 
southeast. We sat on our terrasse and wondered. 
That night every auto-taxi in the city was convey- 
ing a portion of General Maunoury's army out of 
the north gates, to fall on the enemy's right flank. 
The next morning, bright and early, those of us 
who were astir, heard very faintly — so faintly we 
could scarcely believe, but we heard nevertheless, 
the opening guns of the battle of the Marne. 

I know only one journalist who actually saw the 
battle of the Marne, I know several who said they 
saw it, but I did not believe them, and I know 
better than to believe them now. Of course there 
are French journalists who took a military part 
in the battle, but they have not yet had opportu- 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 59 

nity to clironicle their impressions — those of them 
who live. This one journalist saw the battle as a 
prisoner with his own army ; he was lugged along 
with them clear to the Aisne. 

The week following the German retreat to the 
Aisne, I was permitted to visit the field of glory. 
It was only after skilful maneuvres and great dif- 
ficulties that I secured a military pass. And then 
my pass was canceled after I had been out of 
Paris only three days — and I was sent back under 
a military escort. But I saw the battlefield before 
the hand of the restorer reached it. 

The trees still lay where they fell, cut down by 
shells. Broken cannon and aeroplanes were in 
the ditches and in the fields. Unused German 
ammunition and food supplies were strewn about, 
showing where the enemy had been forced to a 
hasty retreat. Sentries guarded every cross 
roads. The dead, numbering thousands, lay 
unburied and dotted the plain as far as the eye 
could see. It was still the field of glory. It was 
still wet with blood. 

We who took that trip were thrilled by all the 
silent evidence of the mighty struggle that had 
taken place there only a few days — only a few 
hours before. It was easy for us to picture the 
mammoth combat, the battle of the millions, across 



6o PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

that wonderful, beautifully undulating plain. The 
war was terrible — true. But it was glorious. 
The men who died there were heroes. Our emo- 
tions were almost too much for us. And in the 
very near distance the artillery still thundered 
both night and day. 

On the third of February, 1915, five months 
from the time I sat on the terrasse of the Cafe 
Napolitain waiting to hear the guns, I travel 
for a second time over the battlefield of the 
Mame. 

This time I do not have a military pass. It is 
no longer necessary. The valley of the Mame is 
no longer in the zone of operations. I go out 
openly in an automobile. There are no sentries 
to block the way. The road is perfectly safe; 
so safe that I take my wife with me to show her 
some of the devastations of war. She is prob- 
ably the first of the visitors to pass across that 
famous battlefield, perhaps soon to be overrun by 
thousands. 

Our car climbs the steep hill beyond Meaux, 
which is the extreme edge of the battlefield, about 
ten in the morning; and during the day circuits 
about half the area of the fighting, a distance of 
about seventy-five miles — or a hundred miles. 

The "Field of Five Thousand Dead" is what 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 6i 

the majority of the tourists will probably call the 
battlefield of the Mariie, because of the tragic 
toll of life taken on that one particular rolling bit 
of meadow. 

We stop at this field in the morning soon after 
leaving Meaux, As we look across it we see none 
of the signs of conflict that I had witnessed in 
September. There are none of the ruined accou- 
terments of war. No horses lie on their backs, 
four legs sticking straight in the air. There are 
no human forms in huddled and grotesque posi- 
tions in the ravines and on the flat. True, every 
tree bears the mark of bullets, every wall has been 
shattered by shells, but these signs are not over- 
powering evidences of massive conflict. There is 
nothing to make vivid the fearful charge of the 
Zouaves against the flower of Von Kluck's army 
only five months before. 

Yes — there is something. As we look more 
closely we see far away a cluster of little rude 
black wood crosses. They are not planted on 
mounds, they just stick up straight from the level 
ground. There are other little clusters through- 
out the field. Each cross marks a grave. Each 
grave contains from a dozen to fifty bodies. 
Together the crosses mark the total of five thou- 
sand dead. 



62 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

An old woman hobbles along the main road. 
She looks at us curiously and stops beside the 
car. I ask if we can go close to the little black 
crosses. She replies that we can but that the 
fields are very muddy. I ask if any of the graves 
are marked with the names of the fallen soldiers. 
She shakes her head. No, they are the unknown 
dead. The regiments that fought across that field 
are known — that is all. There are both French 
and German dead. The relatives of course know 
that their men were in those regiments and they 
may assume, if they have not received letters from 
them recently, that they have been buried there — 
out on that vast, undulating, wind swept plain 
under one of the little black crosses. But, of 
course, one can never be sure. They might not 
be dead at all — only prisoners — or again, they 
might have died somewhere else. It is all very 
confusing and vague — ^what happens to the men 
who no longer send letters home. It is safe to 
believe they are just dead — to determine where 
they died is difficult. 

The old woman suggests that we visit the little 
village grave-yard, at the corner of the field. The 
Zouave officers are buried there — those who were 
recognized as officers. Some English had also 
been found and carried there. She is the caretaker 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 63 

of the little grave-yard. She will show it to us. 
She says that it is much more interesting than the 
field. The field is much too muddy. 

The world is as still as the death all around us 
when we enter that little country grave-yard. It 
has been trampled by a multitude. The five 
months that have elapsed and the hard work of 
the little old woman have not destroyed the signs 
of conflict there. But the time has taken the glory. 
The low stone wall that surrounds the place has 
been used as a barricade by the Zouaves. It is 
pierced with holes for their rifles. In many 
places portions of the wall are missing, showing 
where the shells have struck. 

In the center of the yard, one of them has 
opened a grave. It is a child's grave. I look 
down into the hole about three feet below the 
muddy surface of the yard. I see a weather- 
beaten headstone. It bears the child's name. A 
hundred years, according to date, that stone has 
silently borne witness of the few years of life 
before death, and then it has been rudely crushed 
into the earth on a glorious day in September. 
The graves of the soldiers who died there that 
same glorious day are all fresh mounds. There 
are only twenty or thirty mounds, but five hun- 
dred dead are buried beneath them. Above the 



64 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

mounds are freshly painted crosses. On some of 
tliem are roughly printed the names of the fallen 
officers. On several are wreaths or artificial flow- 
ers — ^beads in the shape of violets and yellow por- 
celain immortelles. In one corner under a little 
cross is inscribed the name of an English lieuten- 
ant of dragoons — aged twenty. The old caretaker 
says that his family may take his body to Eng- 
land when the war is over — but, of course, he is 
not buried in a coffin — just put into the ground on 
the spot where he was found clutching a frag- 
ment of his sword in his hand. 

We drive away to the north. On both sides of 
the road little clusters of black crosses are planted 
in the fields. Several times we pass great charred 
patches on the earth. These are the places where 
the G-ermans burned their dead before retreating. 
There are trenches too — trenches and the dead. 
There are old trenches and new — those made in 
a few hours while both armies alternately 
advanced and retreated, and those which the 
French engineers have made since for use if the 
Germans again advance. 

We are a dozen miles from the river Aisne 
when our chauffeur stops. If we go nearer we 
will be in "the zone of operations" where passes 
are rigidly required — where if one does not pos- 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 65 

sess a pass one is under rigid suspicion. We do 
not take the chance of advancing further. 

We are in a devastated village. We have 
passed through many but this one seems worse 
than the others. The church has been demol- 
ished and two-thirds of the houses gutted by shells 
and fire. The place is almost deserted by the 
inhabitants. When we halted our car there was 
not the sound of a living thing. Then a few scare- 
crow children gathered and examined us curi- 
ously. We examine the remnants of the House 
of God. It has doubtless been used as a fortress. 
Bloody uniforms are scattered among the tumbled 
stones. Five bodies are rotting underneath the 
altar. Our minds have gone morbid by the horror. 
The chauffeur turns the car about. An old man 
comes from the ruins of a shop. He asks if we 
want to buy souvenirs. The word ''souvenirs" 
halts us. We wonder how many thousand will be 
sold in this village, and in all the villages during 
the years following the war. I recall that only 
a few years ago one might buy "authentic sou- 
venirs of the battle of Waterloo." The old man 
lugs forth a German helmet and the cartridge of 
a French shell — one of the famous ''seventy- 
fives." He asks if we are Americans. Then he 
places a value of five dollars on the helmet and 



66 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

one dollar for the cartridge. We think that the 
thrifty inhabitants of these villages may yet tri- 
umph over the devastation of war if they lay in 
sufficient stock of souvenirs. Our chauffeur 
informs us that we can pick up all we desire in the 
fields, and we take to the road again. 

We stop the car beside a large open meadow 
a few miles south. The field contains the same 
clusters of crosses. Part of it is plowed ground 
and is soggy from the rains. We stumble along 
it, mud to our shoe tops. We stop beside the 
crosses. They do not mark all the graves. I sud- 
denly feel my feet sink in the mud. I hastily free 
myself. My wife asks me what is the matter, and 
I rush away further into the field. I have acci- 
dentally stepped into a grave — the mud being so 
soft — and have felt my boot touch something. As 
I looked down I saw a couple of inches of smeared, 
muddy, gray cloth. 

We leave the plowed ground and come into a 
field of stubble. We stand silent a moment at the 
top of a knoll. The short winter day is dying 
rapidly. The horizon for the moment seems lost 
in cold blue vapors. It seems appropriate to the 
place — it is like battle smoke. 

I stoop over to pick up a shrapnel ball imbedded 
in the mud. My wife seizes me by the arm. * ' Lis- 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 67 

ten," she whispers. The gloom of dusk is creep- 
ing about us. *'Did you hear?" she asks. Then 
we hear. "Boom, boo-o-m, boom, boo-o-om." It 
is quite as faint as the opening sounds of the bat- 
tle of the Marne to the early risers in Paris. But 
it is quite as distinct. We have just heard the 
guns which are still disputing the possession of 
the Aisne. 

The chauffeur is signaling to us. The wind 
sweeps over the desolate field with a few drops of 
rain. We make a detour near a haystack. Close 
to the base — almost under it, I pick up torn 
strips of gray uniform. They are covered with 
blood. There is also a battered brass belt buckle, 
and a bent canteen — evidence of the ghastly and 
lonely tragedy enacted there. A few feet away 
looms through the dark the usual black wood cross 
of the field of glory. 

The chauffeur has lighted the lamps on the car. 
We hear the sound of the engine as we hasten 
through the mud. We are surfeited with devasta- 
tion, with horror, and with the field of glory. We 
tell him to hasten toward Meaux where we will 
take the next train for Paris. He drives us 
swiftly into the coming night over the hill that 
looks upon the ''Field of Five Thousand Dead." 
There we stop a moment to see the last struggles 



68 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

of the descending sun tipping the forests on the 
horizon with rosy flames. 

We return by a different road through another 
devastated village. It is not really a village — 
just a large farmstead — a model farm it was called 
before the war. Now the stone walls have crum- 
bled. The buildings are twisted skeletons of iron 
bars — all that withstood the appetite of the flames. 
Their outlines are vivid black against the sky. 
They seem to writhe in the wind. 

A man and a woman and little girl stand in the 
road. The car stops and we get out. The man is 
the owner of the ruin. The woman and child are 
his wife and daughter. They had fled when the 
Germans approached. After the glorious victory 
they returned to their home. The woman asks us 
to enter the broken gateway. At one end of the 
walled yard was the house. A broken portion of 
it remains. The man had boarded up the holes 
and the cracks in the walls and the empty window 
frames. He explains that the place had been 
taken and retaken four times before the French 
were finally victorious. He tells us of the toll 
that death had taken in the yard. The woman 
tells of bodies found in the house — so many in the 
parlor — so many in the bedroom— so many lying 
on the stairs. 



THE FIELD OF GLORY 69 

We walked back to the road where the side 
lamps of the car cast flickering flames into the 
night. The chauffeur turns on the electric head 
lamps that throw a blinding light fifty feet away. 
The little girl dances in front of them and across 
the road to a mound of mud. She laughs. Pier 
mother asks her why she is happy. "Oh, the 
lights, ' ' she calls back. " It 's like Christmas — and 
folks are here." She picks up a stone and throws 
it toward the mound of mud. I noticed that the 
mound is regular in form — and oblong, about a 
dozen by six feet in size. Around it runs a border 
of flat stones. They are set on the corners and 
arranged in angular criss-cross lines such as a 
child builds with his toy wooden blocks. We 
watch the little girl as she kicks one of the stones 
loose. Her mother calls to her and she hastily 
puts it back in position. A tall tree casts a 
shadow across the center of the mound. Through 
the top of the tree the rising wind begins to sob, 
and the rain drops blow into our faces. The 
mother again calls to the child, who comes back 
across the road stubbing her toes into the mud. 

The chauffeur starts the engine and turns the 
front of the car so that the headlights are direct 
on the mound, with its border of stones arranged 
like toy blocks. The shadow of the tall tree points 



70 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

in another direction. Where it had been — ^where 
I could not see before — ^I now see a black wooden 
cross. *'How many under that?" I asked the 
man casually. "Eighteen or twenty-two," he an- 
swers, "I forget. We found them here in the 
road." 

We jump into the car and leave the field of 
glory in the dark. 



PAET THREE 
THE ARM OF MILITARY AUTHORITY 



Repitblique FnANgAtSE 

ministkhp: de la guerre 



PERMIS 

DE CORRESPONDANT DE PRESSE 
AUX ARMEES 



JOURNAL 
CORRESPONDANT 



Ce perniis doit etre retourn6 au Bureau de la Pres*e 
du Nflnistere des Affaires Etrang^res a la fin de chaque 
touniee. 

THE AUTHOR'S PASS 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FIELD OF BATTLE 

**To see the damage done by the Grermans in 
unfortified villages/' 

This was the quest that first passed me into 
the zone of military operations, that first landed 
me on the field of battle, and gave nue my first 
experience under fire. 

Ambassador Herrick had procured a pass for 
me and two other Paris oorrespondents ; it cov- 
ered also an automobile and chauffeur, and was 
signed by General Gallieni, the Military Governor 
and Commander of the Army of Paris. Mr. Her- 
rick explained that he had requested it, because 
we had not attempted to leave the city without 
credentials — as had many correspondents — ''by 
the back door, " as he said. He considered that it 
was time for some of us to go out openly "by the 
front door," in order to later tell the truth to 
America. 

We took the pass thankfully. It was good for 
a week and would take us ''anywhere on the field 

73 



74 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

of battle/' We liave always been tbankful that 
this pass was handed to us by Ambassador Her- 
rick in his private room at the American Embassy, 
and that it was requested of General Gallieni by 
the Ambassador himself — that it was his idea and 
not ours. For later it developed that a pass from 
General Gallieni was not sufficient to take us ''any- 
where on the field of battle ' ' — the pass itself dis- 
appeared and we came back to Paris as prisoners 
of war. We were told that we were arrested 
because we were ''at the front without creden- 
tials." Our defense was clear, because, we 
argued, when an ambassador asks for something, 
a record of that request exists. Ambassador Her- 
rick made a similar declaration, and we were not 
only released but "expressions of regret" for our 
"detention" were tendered us. 

We rented a car and a French chauffeur. We 
wore rough clothes and heavy overcoats, we took 
extra socks, collars, soap, shaving utensils and 
candles. As food we took sardines, salmon, cocoa, 
biscuits, coffee, sausage, bread, bottles of wine 
and water. We also bought an alcohol lamp, 
aluminum plates, collapsible drinking cups and 
jack-knives. At four o'clock that afternoon we 
started. 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 75 

In retrospect I divide the ensuing days into two 
parts, and in the latter part I believe that the 
high water mark of my existence was reached — 
at least the high tide from the standpoint of new 
sensations, excitement, and genuine thrills. To 
digress for an instant, I have somewhere read 
the account of a person, a well-known novelist, 
who visited the French trenches months after the 
period I shall describe; when he got away from 
his censor and was safe back in America, he 
reported that no correspondents have really seen 
anything in this war — and that many of their 
stories are fakes. Some correspondents, including 
this one, have not seen much. Some stories have 
been fakes, including the one which he told. I 
wish it were permissible to enumerate some of the 
fakes in detail — ^but I wish for the sake of this per- 
son that he had been along in either the second 
or the first portions of that trip; — when, just a 
few miles outside Paris, we first heard the Sen- 
tries in the Dark — when, the next morning we met 
the first batch of Wounded Who Could Walk — 
and later, when we ate luncheon to an orchestra 
of bursting shells, a luncheon ordered quietly — to 
be eaten quietly, during a Lull in the Bombard- 
ment. 



76 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

(A) Sentries in the Daek 

The car wliizzed down the straight country 
road. We were trying to make night quarters 
thirty kilometers away. The dusk was already 
upon us — and the rain. Every night for a week 
the rain had come at dusk. We were well behind 
the battle lines, but the Grermans had held that 
countryside only a few days before. Many of 
them still lurked in the dense woods. At dusk 
they were apt to shoot at passing motors. If they 
killed the occupants, they secured clothes and cre- 
dentials and attempted cutting through to their 
own lines. The night before, a French general 
had been killed on the road we were passing. 
Therefore it was not well to be abroad at dusk, 
too far northward on the battlefield of the Aisne. 
But we had cast a tire and lost considerable time. 
It was necessary to go forward or strike back 
toward Paris. To remain in the open held an 
additional risk of being stopped by a British 
patrol — we were near their lines — and the British 
were not so polite as the French about requisition- 
ing big touring cars. Our credentials were 
French. 

So we dipped into the night down a long road 
that ran between solid shadows of towering trees. 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 77 

behind which ran the continuous hedge of the 
French countryside, making an ideal hiding place 
for enemies. The rain increased and so did the 
cold. Our French driver struggled into an ulster 
and we crouched low in the body of the limousine, 
watching the whirling road revealed by our pow- 
erful headlights fifty yards in front of the car. 

Suddenly came a sharp cry. The chauffeur 
crashed on the brakes and the car slid to a stand- 
still. I knew that cry from many a novel I had 
read, but I had never actually heard it before. It 
was the famous ' ' Qui vive ' ^ or * ' Who goes there ! ' ' 
of the French army. We sat waiting. We saw 
no one. The rain poured down. 

The cry was repeated. A soldier stepped into 
the road and stood in the light of our lamps about 
thirty feet away. His rifle was half thrown across 
his arm and half aimed towards us. He was a 
tall, handsome chap wearing a long coat buttoned 
back at the bottom away from his muddy boots. 
His cap was jammed carelessly over one eye. He 
bent forward and peered at us under our lights, 
which half blinded him. Then we saw two dusky 
shadows at either side of the car. We caught the 
steel flash of bayonets turned toward us. 

The chauffeur saw them too, for he cried out 
nervously, "Non, non!" The soldier in the road 



78 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

ignored him. In the dramatic language of France 
his '^Avances — donnez le mot de la nuit" somided 
far more impressive than the English equivalent 
about advancing to give the countersign. He 
spoke the words simply, a little monotonously, 
with an air of having done it many times during 
his period of watch. Then he bent lower and 
peered more intently under the lights, brushing 
one arm across his face as though the pelting rain 
also interfered with his business of seeing in the 
night. 

The chauffeur stated that we carried the signed 
pass of General Gallieni. If we had mentioned 
the Mayor of Chicago we would not have made 
less impression. The ghostly sentries at the sides 
of the car did not budge. The patrol in the cen- 
ter of the road in the same almost monotone 
announced that one of us would descend. One 
would be sufficient. The others might keep the 
shelter of the car. But he would see these cre- 
dentials from General X . If to him they did 

not appear in order, our fate was a matter within 
his discretion. We were traveling an important 
highway and his orders were definite. So the 
member of our party who carried the important 
slip of paper descended. 

The sentry in the road moved further into the 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 79 

light. As he read the pass he sheltered it from 
the rain under the cape of his coat. The guards 
at the sides of the car remained as though built 
in position. Then the leader handed back the 
paper and brought his hand to salute. The others 
immediately broke their pose; moved into the 
light and likewise saluted. The tension relieved, 
we all felt friendly. As we started forward I held 
a newspaper out of the window and three hands 
grasped it simultaneously. We had hundreds of 
newspapers, for some one had told us how welcome 
they would be at the front. 

At an intersection of roads a couple of miles 
further on, the rain was pelting down so fiercely 
that we did not clearly hear the ''qui vive." The 
chauffeur desperately called out not to shoot as a 
file of soldiers suddenly swung across the road 
with rifles leveled. On their leader we then tried 
an experiment which we afterwards followed reli- 
giously. We handed over a newspaper with our 
pass. To our surprise he turned first to the gov- 
ernment war communique on the first page and 
read it through, grunting his satisfaction mean- 
while, before he even glanced at the document 
which held our fate and on which the rain was 
making great inky smears. Then he saluted and 
we drove on rapidly — everybody smiling. 



8o PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

The road then led up an incline through a small 
village that was filled with soldiers. A patrol 
halted us as usual and informed us that there was 
no hotel within another five miles, and possibly 
even that hotel might be closed. At this news our 
excitable chauffeur immediately killed his engine 
and the car started slipping backward down the 
incline. Fifty soldiers leaped forward and held 
it while the brakes were applied. We distributed 
a score of newspapers and as many cigarettes 
before we could get under way. 

We passed no more patrols, but when our lights 
finally picked out the first signs of the next village 
they also brought into bold relief a pile of 
masonry completely blocking the road. We 
stopped. A villager loomed out of the dark at the 
side of the car and informed us that the road was 
barred because the bridge just beyond had been 
blown up and that we could not pass over the pon- 
toon until morning. The inn, he said, had never 
been closed nor was its stock of tobacco yet 
exhausted. He offered to conduct us, and when 
the innkeeper — a very fat innkeeper — looked over 
our credentials from General Gallieni he insisted 
that certain guests should double up, in order to 
make room for us in the crowded place. He then 
called his wife, his daughter, his father and his 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 8i 

father's wife, that they might be permitted the 
honor of shaking us by the hand, as he held aloft 
the candle, the flame of which flickered down the 
ancient stone corridor that led to our rooms. 

(B) The Wounded Who Could Walk 

We were crossing a battlefield four days old. 
It was remarkable how much it resembled the ordi- 
nary kind of field. The French had conquered 
quickly at this point and the dead had been buried. 
Except for frequent mounds of earth headed by 
sticks forming crosses; except for the marks of 
shrapnel in the roads and on the trees; except 
for the absence of every living thing, this country- 
side was at peace. The sun was shining. The 
frost had brought out flaming tints on the hills. 
It was glorious Indian summer. 

The road we were motoring wound far away 
through the battlefield. For the armies had 
fought over a front of many miles. We traveled 
slowly. As we topped a rise and searched the 
valley below with our glasses, a mile away in 
the cup of the valley we saw a moving mass. It 
filled the roadway from hedge to hedge and 
appeared to be approaching us. We drove more 
slowly, stopping several times. The movement of 
the car made the glasses quiver and blur. We 



82 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

saw that the moving mass stretched back a con- 
siderable distance — perhaps the length of a city 
block. We stopped our engine and waited in the 
center of the road. 

As the mass came nearer it outlined itself into 
men. We saw that they were soldiers; but we 
could not distinguish the uniform. So we waited. 
We even got our papers ready to show if neces- 
sary. Then we saw that the soldiers were not 
of the same regiment — that their uniforms were 
conglomerate. We saw the misfits of the French 
line regiments, the gay trappings of the Spahis 
and Chasseurs d'Afrique, the skirt trousers of the 
Zouaves, Turcos and Senegalese, the khaki of the 
English Tommies and the turbans of the Hindoos. 
But all these men in the varied costumes of the 
army of the Allies wore one common mark — a 
bandage. Arm or head or face was wrapped in 
white cloths, usually stained with blood. For 
these on whom we waited were the wounded who 
could walk. They were going from the battle 
trenches to somewhere in the rear. 

The front rank glanced wonderingly at the big 
motor that blocked the center of the road and 
moved aside in either direction. Those behind 
did likewise, until there was a lane for the car to 
pass. But we waited. As the front rank came 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 83 

level with us, a dust-caked British Tommy, with 
a bloody bandage over one eye, winked his good 
one at us and touched his cap in salute. We took 
our hats off as the tragic crowd surrounded us. 
Tommy sat down on our running board and I 
handed him a cigarette. 

The cigarette established cordial relations at 
once. Tommy's lean face was browned by the sun 
and streaked with dirt. About the bandage which 
encircled his head and crossed his right eye were 
cakes of dirt and clots of blood. His hair where 
his cap was pushed back was sand color and 
crinkly. The eye that turned up to me was pale 
blue and the skin just about it was white and blue 
veined. 

**Is this Frawnce or is it Belgium?" he asked 
me. At my answer he squirmed around on the 
running board, calling to a companion in khaki 
just coming up — his arm in a sling — '' 'Ee says 
it's Frawnce." The other nodded indifferently 
and saluted us. 

I asked the man about the battle, but he only 
stared. His friend on the running board turned 
his eye upward and said, "It's 'ell, that's wot it 
is. " I replied that my question had to do with the 
course of the battle — which side was winning ; and 
he too only stared at that. Then he arose and 



84 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

plodded on and I gave a cigarette to Ms compan- 
ion. 

A score of men stood about the front of the car 
where the chauffeur was busy handing out apples 
and pears. My companions were busy on the 
opposite side with a dozen French infantrymen, 
telling the latest news from Paris and giving out 
newspapers. I leaned over them, the box of cigar- 
ettes still in my hand. A tall Senegalese stand- 
ing back from the group caught sight of the box 
and called out, ' ' Cigarette, eh ! " I motioned him 
to my side of the car. He came running weakly, 
followed at once by fifty others. I handed out 
until that box and several others that I dug from 
my valise were exhausted. I called several times 
that I had no more, but still they crowded about, 
stretching out their arms and crying, "Cigarette, 
eh ? " One of my companions warned me that we 
might ourselves feel the want of tobacco — that 
money would not buy it in the country we were 
traversing, because it did not exist. 

We still had a box of cigars and I had several 
loose in my pocket. The black face of a Turco 
appeared at the car window. One arm was in a 
sling and a bandage was wound about his brow. 
But his eyes shone brightly at the thought of 
tobacco, and at the smell of it now arising on all 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 85 

sides. He was tobacco hungry. He was more 
than that. He was tobacco starving. He poked 
his other arm into the car. I motioned him to 
crowd his entire bulk into the window so that the 
others would not see. Then I gave him a cigar. 
He hung over the car frame as I held out the 
lighted tip of my own cigar. He puifed a cloud 
into the interior. He looked at the cigar fondly 
and seemed to measure its length. It was a good 
cigar. If it had been a miserable cheroot his 
regard would have been the same. He took 
another puff, and drew a complete mouthful into 
his lungs. His cheeks bulged and his eyes glinted 
inwards as though he looked at the tip of his nose. 
I wondered how long he could keep that huge 
mouthful of smoke within him. Again he held 
the cigar close to his eyes and seemed to measure 
its length. It burned perfectly round and the ash 
was white and solid. Finally he poured forth the 
smoke from nose and mouth and ejaculated the 
only English word he knew — ''good." I nodded 
and asked in French where he had been fighting. 
He cocked his head toward the fore part of the 
car and took another puff. I asked him where 
be had been wounded and he replied that he did 
not know but that it occurred in the trenches "la 
bas. ' ' I asked him how long he had been fighting 



86 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

in France — ^how long since lie had left Africa, and 
he spread his arm far out to indicate that the time 
had been long. I asked him where he was going ; 
he rolled his eyes to the rear of the car and said 
he did not know. 

I sank back in my seat and he climbed down 
into the road. Most of the troop had limped off. 
To the few still lingering we indicated that our 
stock of things to give away was exhausted. 
They eyed us wistfully, then passed on. 

The chauffeur asked if he should start the car, 
but some one said, ''No, let's wait until they all 
pass. ' ' The rear guard straggled up ; many were 
ready to drop with fatigue and pain and loss of 
blood. I asked a Britisher how long they had 
been on the road. He replied ' ' since sunrise ' ' and 
plodded stolidly on. It was then noon. Several 
sank down for moments under the trees by the 
roadside. A chasseur stopped and asked our 
chauffeur to tighten a thong of his bandage, which 
was stained with fresh blood. We asked him 
where they were going and he replied vaguely, 
"To the rear." ''And what then?" one of us 
asked. "Oh! I hope we will all be fighting again 
soon, ' '■ he replied. They were all like that. They 
wanted to be fighting again soon. They were not 
happy. They were not unhappy. They were 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 87 

indifferent; more or less, made so by utter fatigue 
and the pain of tlieir wounds. But they all 
wanted to be fighting again soon. 

We watched them top the rise of the hill to dis- 
appear down the long road *Ho the rear." The 
last straggler, his head bound with white and red, 
vanished. They were all privates — all common 
men of all the world from Scotland to Hindustan. 
The majority were coming from and going they 
knew not where, and wanting to fight again for 
they knew not what — except possibly the men of 
France, who began to hear about this war in their 
cradles. 

We cranked up the car. 

(C) A Lull in the Bombardment 

The sentry just outside the town advised us to 
right about face and travel the other direction. 
But he only advised us. Our credentials appeared 
in order and he did not feel that he could issue a 
command on the subject. In fact our credentials 
were very much in order. The sentry saluted us 
most respectfully ; but his advice was wasted. We 
argued to ourselves that if we went to ''the front" 
we must take a few chances. 

So we entered Soissons — one of the most beau- 
tiful and historic towns in Northern France. It 



88 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

has now become even more historic ; but its beauty 
has changed from the crumbling medieval. It is 
a ruin — more — a remnant of the Great War. 

We did not notice this so much as we rode down 
the winding road to the outskirts. We did notice 
the unusual fall of autumn foliage. We com- 
mented on the early season; the preceding night 
had been frosty, following rain. Then we noticed 
many branches lying across the road. Many trees 
were chipped as with an ax, but the chipped 
places were high up — out of reach. We wondered 
why the trees were chipped so high. Then we 
skirted a great hole in the center of the road. A 
tree further on was cut oif close to the ground. 
The truth came to us. The fallen leaves and the 
chipped places were the work of bullets — a multi- 
tude of bullets. The hole in the road and the 
fallen tree were the results of shells. 

We saw horses lying in the fields. Their legs 
stuck rigidly into the air. Horses were lying 
along the roadside. Insects were crawling over 
them. Fallen trees lined the way into the town. 

We turned into the main street and rattled over 
its cobblestones. We met no one. Crossing an 
open square we saw that over half the trees were 
down. Up a side street a house had fallen for- 
ward from its foundations and settled in a 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 89 

crumbled heap in the center of the road. The sun 
which had been shining brightly went behind a 
cloud. We stopped for a moment. We could 
hear the wind sighing in the tops of the remain- 
ing trees. Some one asked, "Is this Sunday?" 
and was answered, '^No. It's Friday. AVhyl" 
He replied, ''Because it is so still. Did you ever 
see a place where people live that is so completely 
silent ? " "It reminds me of London on Good Fri- 
day — everybody gone to church," said another. 

We drove on. A block along the main street 
a soldier in the French uniform of the line lounged 
in a doorway. His long blue overcoat flapped 
desolately over his baggy red trousers. His rifle 
leaned in the corner. We asked if any hotel 
remained open. He replied, "I don't know. 
Have you a cigarette?" I drew out a box and 
he ran to the car, seizing it as a hungry animal 
snatches food. He settled back into his doorway, 
smiling; then said in French argot which trans- 
lated into American best reads: "Do you guys 
know you ain't safe here?" We smiled and 
waited explanation. But he merely shrugged his 
shoulders. We started the car. 

More French soldiers lounged in doorways. 
Once we saw the white and frightened face of a 
woman peering at us from a window. She was 



90 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

entirely incurious. Her gaze was dispassionate. 
She appeared to have not the slightest interest 
either in us or our big car, which surely was a 
rare sight in the streets of that town on that day. 
But the fright upon her face was stamped. 

Several villagers stood at the next corner. 
They exhibited interest. We again asked about 
a hotel and one pointed to a building we had just 
passed. We noted that its doors and windows 
were barred ; but we thought they might open up. 

We asked, then, when the firing on the town 
had ceased. The man laughed. Anything so 
normal as a laugh seemed out of place in that 
ghastly silence. It grated. But it seemed that 
after all one might observe the function of laugh- 
ing even during war. He informed us that the 
German gunners were probably at lunch. We 
asked the position of the French batteries, and as 
he pointed vaguely toward the south we realized 
that we were then in an advance position on the 
firing line — that the force of soldiers was only an 
outpost. The same man told us that the town had 
been under fire for eight days, that the French 
had shifted the position of their heavy guns and 
that the Germans were now trying to locate them. 
We returned to the hotel, stabled our automobile 
and ordered luncheon, which the landlord informed 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 91 

us would be ready in half an hour. So we con- 
tinued the exploration of the town on foot. 

The chauffeur did not accompany us, for there 
was a captured German automobile in the barn 
that interested him greatly. Under the seat he 
found the army papers of the German driver. He 
advised us not to touch them. They were danger- 
ous. If found in our possession we might be 
arrested as spies. So we dropped them back 
under the seat, and went out into the market place. 

As is usual in small French cities the market 
consisted of a large building entirely open at the 
ends and fronting on a large square paved with 
cobbles. We walked into the building; it was 
deserted and our footsteps echoed. In the center 
was a pile of masonry, beneath a large hole in the 
roof torn by a shell. The explosion had cracked 
the side walls. In one of the cracks was jammed 
the top of a meat table, forcibly caught up from 
the floor and hurled there. A little further on a 
shell had passed through both side walls, leaving 
clean holes large enough for a man to stand. 

I stood in one of them and saw where the shell 
had spent its force on a residence across the 
square. It had caught the house plumb on a cor- 
ner and at the floor of the second story, so that 
the floor sagged down into the room below. The 



92 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

room above had been a bedchamber. The entire 
side wall was gone, so all that remained of the 
intimacies of the room were exposed. The bed 
with the covers thrown back as though the occu- 
pant quitted it hurriedly had slipped forward until 
stopped by a broken bit of the wall. From 
another jagged piece of masonry that formed part 
of the wall the blue skirt of a child flapped deso- 
lately over the sidewalk. We left the market 
building and stood in the center of the square look- 
ing down the six streets that emptied into it. 
They were narrow, winding streets, and we could 
not see far. But in all we could see the ruin — 
the crumbled masonry and walls blackened by fire. 
We looked at our watches and hurried toward 
the hotel. Entering the street, about half a block 
distant, we stopped to look down a side alley. As 
we looked we heard what seemed to be a shrill 
whistle, pitched high and very prolonged. It 
seemed like the shriek of a suddenly rising wind ; 
but it was followed by a dull boom and the crash 
of falling masonry. We looked behind us and saw 
clouds of smoke and dust rising a short distance 
beyond the market place. We ran toward the 
hotel. At the entrance we again heard the high- 
pitched screaming whistle, ending in a crash much 
more acute. ''That struck nearer," one of us 



THE FIELD OF BATTLE 93 

observed. But we did not wait to see. As we 
entered the hall, the landlord remarked, '^Ca com- 
mence encore." 

We filed into the dining room in time to see him 
carefully place the soup upon the table. 



CHAPTEE IX 

'detained" by the colonel 



We had just passed a sentry on the outskirts of 
a village. He had brought his rifle to an imposing 
salute as he read the name upon our military cre- 
dentials. One of my companions, smiling fatu- 
ously, remarked: 

''Well, fellows, this is a real pass. It gets us 
anywhere. ' ' 

At that very instant the Colonel leaped on the 
running board of our automobile. 

He too was smiling, but not fatuously. Al- 
though he was French he was sufficiently an 
Anglophile to affect a monocle, and this gave a 
chilling, glassy effect to his smile. 

''Your pass!" he said, stretching out his hand, 
at the same time signaling the chauffeur to stop. 
The pass was given him, one of us explaining 
that we had just shown it to a sentry, who had 
permitted us to enter the town. 

"Ah, quite so," he murmured. He carefully 
read the pa^s, screwing his monocle into his eye. 

94 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 95 

''Ah, quite so. But you will please follow 
me." He signaled us to get out of the car and 
directed the chautfeur to turn to the side of the 
road and to remain there. Then he led the way 
down a narrow lane. At the door of a small 
house he told us to wait. He left the door open 
and we saw him pass down the hall and into a 
rear room. Then came a burst of laughter. 

''More 'journalistes Americains/ " we heard; 
and then another peal of merriment. We stood 
about the doorstep and wondered. 

The Colonel reappeared and again directed us 
to follow. This time he led the way to a barn 
a short distance along the road. A cow yard 
surrounded the barn, enclosed by a high stone 
wall. At the gate stood a soldier with fixed 
bayonet. On the gate-post was written a single 
word. 

I had been suspecting for several minutes that 
a hitch had occurred in our plans for going war- 
corresponding. My companions had similar 
ideas, but we had kept silent. Now, as we stared 
at this word written on the wall, I turned to the 
chap who had spoken so confidently about our 
pass. 

"You were right about the pass," I said. "It 
gets us anywhere." 



96 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

For the word written on the wall was ' ' Prison. ' ' 

The Colonel stopped at the gate of the cow 
yard, twirled his mustache, and screwed his 
monocle. He bowed. We bowed. Then we pre- 
ceded him through the gate. 

A derisive yell greeted us from a quartet 
seated on a wooden bench outside the door of the 
barn. The quartet arose and came towards us 
laughing. 

"You know these men?'^ asked the Colonel. 

Oh, yes, we knew them. They too were news- 
paper men, at least three of them. Two repre- 
sented Italian papers, one an Amsterdam journal. 
The fourth was an Italian nobleman whose name 
was frequently in the social columns because of 
his dinners at the Eitz and Armenonville. He 
explained that he had accompanied the others as 
their gentleman chauffeur, driving his own big 
car. It had been requisitioned for the army at 
the same moment they themselves were escorted 
into the cow yard three days before. The Colo- 
nel stood by during our greetings, still twirhng 
his mustache. He addressed the quartet. 

*' Since you know these men," he said, indica- 
ting us, "you will please explain to them where 
they will sleep and the arrangements for food." 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 97 

Then he turned to us, at the same time pointing 
to a corner of the building nearest the wall gate. 
He said: 

"You are permitted to remain out of doors as 
much as you like, but you are not to pass that 
comer. If you do — ^well — " a shrug and the 
monocled smile, "the soldier at the gate will 
probably shoot." 

The sage of our party became sarcastic. 

"I presume that the soldier's gun is loaded," 
he remarked. 

"Oh, yes," the Colonel still smiled. "The gun 
is always ready — also the bayonet — it would be 
regrettable — " again he shrugged his shoulders. 

"But why are we prisoners," the sage one de- 
manded, "and where is our pass? If we cannot 
go on we will go back to Paris. What right have 
you to keep us here?" 

The Colonel raised his eyebrows and spread 
out his hands. His tones were so polite as to be 
almost apologetic. 

"Eight?" he questioned. "My dear fellow, it 
is simply a question of the force majeure. And 
besides you are not prisoners." 

"Not prisoners?" we shouted in unison. "If 
we are not prisoners, then what are we?" 



98 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

*'You are not prisoners," the Colonel insisted. 
''You are simply detained. You can neither go 
forward nor back until I receive further instruc- 
tions concerning you. For the moment you are 
my guests. ' ' 

He bowed politely and gracefully. 

*'And the soldier with the rifle I And the dead 
line at the comer of the building?" 

"Ah, quite so — quite so," murmured the Colo- 
nel; then bowed again to us and went out the 
gate. 

''Consequential little cuss," sputtered one of 
our trio. 

"Better play up to him," advised one of the 
Italians. "We have been here three days. 
Come see where we sleep — " 

They led the way to a stone outhouse near one 
end of the stable. A soldier with loaded rifle sat 
in the door. We peered within. Two cow stalls 
heaped with filthy straw. One of the stalls was 
empty; in the other we could dimly discern some 
huddled forms. 

"We sleep in the empty one," our confreres 
informed us. "You will sleep there too." 

"And those in the other stall f" I asked. 

"Oh, those! They are German spies captured 
during the day. They take them out every morn- 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 99 

ing — they don't come back — fresh ones take their 
places. ' ' 

I shuddered. "What becomes of them?" No 
one answered and the other Italian said : ' ' Don 't 
talk about such things. We too are prisoners, 
you know." 

''Oh, no," said some one. *'We are not pris- 
oners — we are merely detained — guests of the 
Colonel." 

That evening the Colonel clattered into the yard 
on horseback. About twenty of his men were loaf- 
ing about. On his appearance there was a great 
to-do. They sprang stiffly to attention in lines on 
either side of the horse. I learned later that this 
was the regular evening ceremony when the Colo- 
nel returned from his ride. I had to admit that he 
cut a fine figure on a horse. His body was slen- 
der and very straight. His hair slightly grizzled, 
his face grim, but with always that glassy, haughty 
smile. He wore high boots of the finest leather. 
His spurs jingled. His uniform was immaculate. 
His cape swung jauntily over one shoulder. His 
sword clanged. His medals were resplendent. 
His head was held high as he rigidly returned the 
salutes. At every moment I expected to hear the 
orchestra's opening bars, and the Colonel proclaim 
in a fine baritone, "Oh, the Colonel of the regiment 



100 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

am I," with the soldier chorus echoing, *'the Colo- 
nel of the regiment is he." 

However, the Colonel dismounted into very real 
pools of mud and manure. 

'^Les correspondants Americains!" he shouted. 

We lined up — hopefully — before him. 

"Your automobile," he informed us curtly, "has 
become the property of the army. I have directed 
that your overcoats and other belongings, and the 
food you carry with you, be brought to you here. 
You may eat this food and also draw your daily 
ration of the army fare. ' ' 

This was a concession ; and one of the Italians, 
who had drawn near, immediately asked for 
another. 

"Now that there are seven of us," he asked 
"can't we have an audience with the commanding 
general of this division?" 

The Colonel considered, then said: "If you ask 
an audience for only one of your number, you may 
draw up a petition. ' ' 

The Italian, having made the suggestion, wrote 
the petition, we all signed it and an hour later he 
was led away between files of soldiers to see the 
General. Eeturning, after only a few minutes, he 
said the General had received him courteously but 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL loi 

would give him no satisfaction, saying that he was 
waiting for instructions concerning us from Gen- 
eral Joffre. 

There was nothing to do then but make the best 
of it. 

At six o'clock the Colonel's cook informed us 
that we could go to the great open oven in the cow 
yard and draw our evening rations. It was lucky 
that we had our aluminum plates, for there were 
no others for us. We filed across the yard with 
the soldiers and got a mixture of beans and beef 
that was decidedly unpalatable even though we 
flavored it with our own wine and bread. As we 
finished it, our chauffeur, a trench "reforme," 
appeared in the kitchen. He told us he was not 
a prisoner but was ''detained" in the town with 
the car. He asked for a bottle of our wine, which 
we gave him, with a cake of chocolate, and a bot- 
tle of our water. 

My two friends and myself then discussed our 
sleeping problem. We had resolved not to sleep 
in that outhouse with the Germans. When the 
Colonel next came into the yard we tackled him, 
asking if we might not have the freedom of the 
town under parole, in order to find beds. 

He said he could not consider it. 



102 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

''Then," said our spokesman, "rather than 
sleep in the outhouse may we stay here in the 
yard?" 

The Colonel stiffened with sudden resentment 
at our making so many difficulties. He strode 
fiercely to a door of the stable and threw it open, 
showing piles of straw on the earthen floor. 

** There I sleep with my officers," he said with 
dignified reproach. 

''But," we explained, ''it is not the hardship 
to which we object. We do not wish to be classi- 
fied and kept in the same place with German 
spies." 

"Ah," said the Colonel. He stared a moment, 
then smiled. He was human after all. He could 
appreciate that point and liked us the better for 
making it. 

He said we might stay in the yard and then, 
after stamping about the room a few minutes, he 
pointed to a ladder to a loft above his quarters and 
said : 

"You may use that place if you like. It is 
not occupied. The others can sleep there too if 
they like." 

We quickly scaled the ladder and discovered 
a large, bare room that had evidently been used 
as a granary, for there were piles of grain and 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 103 

some farm implements lying about. A small 
window, which the Colonel had evidently over- 
looked, opened on to the street and also a great 
door on the courtyard. 

At eight o'clock we stumbled up into our loft, 
lighted a candle and fixed up our beds. We had 
bought some straw for two francs, from a farmer 
one of the soldiers found for us. The beds were 
hard and uncomfortable. Naturally we slept in 
all our clothes and with our coats over us also; 
but by morning we were chilled through, for the 
wind howled through all the cracks, and several 
panes of glass in the window were broken. So at 
least we had fresh air. 

All through the previous afternoon we had 
heard the constant booming of heavy artillery, 
which the Colonel said was about twelve miles 
away, and was the bombardment of Rheims, 
which he very openly stated was then in process 
of destruction, chiefly by fire. At four in the 
morning this cannonade again started, waking us 
up. We rose and descended to the yard followed 
by the sleepy Italian quartet. We found the 
Colonel, very wide awake, spick and span. He 
fixed the Italians with his monocle. 

''I understand that one of them is a prince," 
he said. ''Tell me which one." 



104 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

"We pointed out the nobleman, who was the 
smallest and the most dispirited of the lot. 

The Colonel grunted : 

'^A prince, eh? Well, I like his automobile 
quite well. ' ' 

That day we got another bench to sit on and 
a box that we transformed into a dining table. 
With some candles we rigged up a lantern. For 
a table-cloth we had some old canvas maps. 
These were furnished by the Colonel himself. In 
fact after we once got behind that monocle we 
came to like our Colonel immensely. It was plain 
that he liked ''les Americains" better than the 
others. Although he could not officially recog- 
nize all that we did, it was understood that we 
were permitted to bribe his cook. So we had 
real coffee for breakfast. We had vegetables not 
included in the army menu; and on one great 
occasion we secured enough apples and pears to 
make a magnificent compote in our little alcohol 
stove. 

We got up the second morning about 6.30, 
greatly discouraged, although the Colonel's cook, 
to whom we had given twenty francs the night 
before, brought us coffee. There was no water 
to be had until the soldiers had finished at the 
pump, and we did not have moral courage enough 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 105 

to shave or wash anyhow; we just stood around 
the courtyard in a drizzle of rain, cursing every- 
thing and everybody, chiefly our captors. We 
argued over and over again that it was ridicu- 
lous to arrest us ; if our pass was no longer valid 
the thing to do was to send us back to Paris, under 
guard if necessary. 

That morning one of the Italians dropped a 
letter out of the window of our loft opening on 
the street, to a soldier, who said he would post 
it in Paris. It was addressed to the ^'Gaulois" 
and contained a note from us to the American 
Ambassador, which I learned later never saw its 
destination. The first news of our whereabouts 
reached Paris in a message that our chauffeur 
sent by hand to the automobile company, merely 
saying that the car had been requisitioned ; and 
we did not know about this until we returned to 
Paris. 

We also drafted a long letter to the Command- 
ing G-eneral, asking to send an enclosed telegram 
to Ambassador Herrick. The telegram stated 
that the three of us were detained at that point, 
and asked him to notify our offices in Paris. The 
Colonel took this letter and said he would deliver 
it to the General ; but the telegram enclosed never 
reached Paris. 



io6 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

At five o'clock tlie third morning we were 
awakened by a soldier coming into the loft and 
waving a lantern over us as we lay on the floor. 
He called out the names of the quartet and told 
them to follow him. They did so, and that was 
the last we saw of them. I confess it gave us 
rather an extra chill, even though we were all 
chilled to the bone from the weather, to see them 
led out in that fashion and at that ghastly hour. 
It was still very dark. We heard them clatter 
out into the courtyard. I peered out of the loft 
door and dimly saw a file of soldiers. I heard 
one of our late companions complaining about the 
loss of his hat. 

At breakfast our fears were set at rest by 
the Colonel explaining that as the quartet had 
been arrested before us their case had been 
settled first, and that they had been taken to 
Paris. He had found the missing hat, which he 
gave to me, and asked anxiously whether I 
would search out the owner when I returned to 
Paris. Inasmuch as this was some indication 
that I really might see Paris again, I gladly prom- 
ised. 

The weather cleared and we passed considerable 
time in the yard. A small enclosed orchard lay 
adjoining the courtyard, and one afternoon the 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 107 

Colonel gave us permission to walk there. We 
found some wild flowers and put tliem in our 
buttonholes. This touch of elegance called forth 
the admiration of the Colonel when we again saw 
him. 

"C'est comme a Paris/' he said. 

We even got up enough courage to shave and 
scrape the mud off our clothes and boots, and 
clean up generally as well as we could. We had 
given the cook another twenty francs and he 
heated some water for us. 

At noon the next day the Colonel told us that 
arrangements had been made for us to return to 
Paris at three o'clock and in our own automo- 
bile; inasmuch as his soldiers did not like it, it 
was to be turned over to the authorities in Paris. 
He asked us what had become of our French 
chauffeur. We insisted that no one could know 
less about this than we; and a detail of soldiers 
was sent out to rake the town for him. After 
the midday meal we noticed that the guard at the 
gate had been withdrawn, so we suggested that 
perhaps we could pass our ''dead line" and look 
out at the world. As we reached the gate four 
men in civilian dress accompanied by a soldier 
entered. The soldiers in the cow yard and our- 
selves burst into a mighty laugh. ''More Ameri- 



io8 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

can correspondents," was the shout that greeted 
the newcomers. 

Two of them were special correspondents for 
American and English papers, one was a * 'famous 
war correspondent," the fourth was an amateur 
journalist whose claim to war corresponding 
lay in his former experience as an officer in the 
New York militia. Also he was the relative of 
a wealthy politician. 

No credentials were found on the person of any 
one of the quartet ; but they were making a great 
fuss about the "injustice" that was being done 
them. Our Colonel, to whom they addressed their 
remarks, became bored. He left them still talk- 
ing and came over to us. 

''They go to Paris at the same time as you," 
he announced. "They are fortunate. I should 
have liked to entertain them for a few days." 
He shrugged his shoulders and grinned sardoni- 
cally. 

He then asked us for our cards. He shook our 
hands. The monocle dropped from his eye and he 
let it dangle on the silken cord. 

"I shall call on you in Paris when the war is 
over," he said, "er-er, that is — if I am still here." 
He hastily jammed the monocle back into its 
proper position. 



"DETAINED" BY THE COLONEL 109 

The automobiles for the party were now in the 
yard, and a captain who was to conduct them told 
us to take our places. As we drove out our Colo- 
nel was standing beside the gate. He was twirl- 
ing his mustache. As we passed, his free hand 
came to a friendly salute. 



CHAPTER X 

THE CHEECHE MIDI 

In the automobile which brought us back to 
Paris, we were guarded by a phenomenon of 
nature — a taciturn French soldier. His rifle dan- 
gled handily across his knee ; he gazed at the pass- 
ing scenery and was dumb to all questions. He 
was even downright mean; for when a tire blew 
up, causing half an hour's delay, he would not 
allow us to stretch our cramped legs in the road. 

He would not even let us talk English among 
ourselves. Once when some one was relating a 
tale of German atrocity he had heard, our guard 
scowled blackly at us, lifting his rifle from his 
knee; and I whispered hastily: ''Quiet, or we may 
become atrocities ourselves!" 

We halted before the headquarters of the Mili- 
tary Governor in the Boulevard des Invalides; 
before the war it had been a school for girls. 
Although it was late in the evening when we 
arrived the sidewalk was crowded, as usual, with 
civilians. The chauffeur waited while the gates 
into the courtyard were opened. The crowd 



THE CHERCHE MIDI iii 

caught sight of the armed escort and as we moved 
forward we caught murmurs of ''prisoners of 
war" and ''spies." 

We smiled at that — for in a few moments, 
thought we, this foolishness would all be over, 
we would be free again. Our "detention" by the 
jolly Colonel was already a memory, listed in 
among our "interesting experiences." Speaking 
in French to pacify our guard, we blithely planned 
a belated dinner at a boulevard restaurant. We 
were ravenous; we decided upon its menu from 
hors-d'oeuvres to cheese and were settling the 
question of wine when some one said : 

"We seem to be waiting here a long time. Do 
you suppose they'd keep us prisoners until morn- 
ing?" 

Our soldier, who by this time had evidently 
become a little tired of his silence, told us curtly 
that the Captain in charge of the party, who had 
preceded us in another car, was conferring as to 
our fate with officials inside. We were so sur- 
prised at this gratuitous information that we 
offered one of our few remaining cigarettes, which 
was promptly accepted. 

The Captain finally ran down the steps of the 
building. The other prisoners, who rode in the 
car with him, had been given some liberty, and 



112 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

were walking about the courtyard. He called to 
them and said something which seemed to throw 
them into fits of rage and dismay. 

Then he came to our car, and we knew at once 
that our dinner, like the Kaiser 's, was indefinitely 
postponed. The Captain did not speak to us at 
all. He merely ordered the chauffeur to follow 
the car ahead, then retraced his steps. All the 
other prisoners but one had reseated themselves. 

This one, the amateur journalist who had at 
one time been an officer in the American militia 
and was also the relative of a rich man, was 
standing beside the car. The Captain curtly 
motioned him to enter; he shook his head vigor- 
ously. We could not hear all of the conversation 
that followed, but it was brief. Finally the Cap- 
tain raised his voice: "So you will not get into 
the automobile?" ''No," replied the American. 
' ' I am an ex-army officer and decline to be treated 
in such fashion." He also mentioned his influen- 
tial relative. 

I admit that at the moment my sympathies 
were somewhat with my fellow countryman; but 
even then I could not help feeling how utterly 
futile was his objection, on whatever ground it 
was based. Throughout our entire period of 
arrest, we — the two friends with whom I had left 



THE CHERCHE MIDI 113 

Paris and myself — had followed but one rule. 
Inasmuch as we had suddenly found ourselves in 
a situation where the chief argument was a rifle 
and cartridge, we always did exactly as we were 
ordered. To rebel against soldiers and officers 
who were only following the orders of their su- 
periors seemed mere folly. The fate of the ex- 
militia man who declined to enter the automobile 
proved this point. 

The Captain apparently had never heard of his 
wealthy relative, for he silently signaled to a 
soldier standing on the steps. The soldier placed 
the point of his bayonet gently against the stom- 
ach of the prisoner, who forthwith backed up the 
steps of the car and fell across the knees of his 
companions, who had been cursing him audibly 
for ''playing the fool." The Captain seated him- 
self beside his chauffeur and both cars started out 
into the night. 

We traversed many streets, but I kept peering 
out of my window and knew our general direc- 
tion. In a few minutes we drew up in a side street 
leading from the Boulevard Raspail, before a 
grimy old building. A soldier with a rifle at 
salute stood beside its heavy doors. I knew that 
building. I had passed it every day during many 
months, for it was just a few blocks from my 



114 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

house and on the direct route to my office. I had 
glanced at it curiously as I passed. I had read 
its history. I wondered if it were as bad on the 
inside as some of the history depicted. 

The doors opened, and I confess I shuddered 
as we slipped softly into the thick blackness of 
the courtyard. There was not a sound for a 
moment, after the chauffeurs cut off the engines. 
Then a door to the right opened, throwing out a 
shaft of light. The Captain descended from the 
car ahead. At the same moment the doors closed 
with a depressing crash of iron. In that moment 
my sensations were of an entirely original char- 
acter. 

We all got out of the cars, the prisoners ahead 
joining us, and stood together in an angry group. 

''Where are we?" asked some one. 

''Don't you know I" the ex-militia man snarled. 
"They've landed us at Saint Lazare!" 

"Saint Lazare!" cried several in unison. 

One of my friends snorted. "Don't be silly. 
St. Lazare is the prison for women, not war cor- 
respondents." 

I roused from my gloomy meditations to break 
into the conversation. 

"I'll tell you where we are if you really care 
to know," I said. "We're in the Cherche Midi — 



THE CHERCHE MIDI 115 

the foremost military prison of France. This is 
the place where Dreyfus awaited his trial. This 
is the place of the historic rats, etc. ' ' 

I ceased abruptly. Here I was, a bare ten min- 
utes' walk from my home — and I might as well 
have been a thousand miles. The clang of those 
doors had shut off all the world. How long did 
they expect to keep us there ? Anight? A week? 
A month? Perhaps until the war was over? 
What could we do about it? Nothing. Those 
doors shut off all hope. We could get no word to 
any one if our captors did not desire it. We 
would remain there exactly as long as they wished. 
No matter what we thought about it — ^no matter 
how innocent we were of military misdemeanor. 
We were prisoners of war in the Cherche Midi — 
and I understood the Dreyfus case better. 

Just before we filed into the examination room 
whence came the shaft of light, the sage of our 
party, who had suggested back in the courtyard 
that we be good prisoners until the right moment 
arrived, tapped me on the shoulder and spoke in 
my ear : 

''Now's the time," he said. "We must kick 
now or never. I will begin the rumpus and you 
follow — and kick hard. ' ' 

They lined us up in the tiny office where a 



ii6 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

lieutenant duly inscribed our names and nefari- 
ous profession in the great register. He slanuned 
the book shut, and began directions to an orderly 
about conducting us to our cells — ^when the sage 
spoke. 

''What about dinner?" he began. 

"Too late," said the officer. **It's midnight." 

*'Not too late to be hungry," was the reply. 
''We have had nothing to eat since noon. Do 
you want it printed that prisoners are starved in 
the Cherche Midi?" 

The officer reflected. He then consulted with 
several orderlies and finally stated that there was 
no available food in the prison, but that he would 
permit us, at our expense, to have dinner served 
from a hotel nearby. We agreed to this and the 
orderlies departed. 

This arranged two things which we desired: 
food — for we were really famished — and time to 
plan our campaign for liberty before being sepa- 
rated into cells. While the orderlies were gone 
we made an argumentative onslaught on the Lieu- 
tenant in his little cubby-hole office, separated by 
a low partition from the big gloomy hall where we 
were told to await our dinner. 

We told him in detail who we were, how we hap- 
pened to be there, all the time insisting on the 



THE CHERCHE MIDI 117 

injustice of our treatment. He replied that 
although he could not discuss the merits of our 
case, it might interest us to know that his orders 
were to keep us for eight days in solitary confine- 
ment, not allowing us to even talk with each other, 
after that dinner which the orderlies were now 
spreading on a big table. 

Eight days ! — and we had already been there a 
year — or so it seemed. Eight days ! Why it was 
an eternity. And we would not stand it. The 
fight in all of us was finally aroused. They could 
drag us to cells and keep us; yes, but dragging 
would be necessary. We assured him of that. 

And then the eagle began to scream. I have 
often wished when traveling in Europe that so 
many American tourists would not so constantly 
keep America and Americanism in the foreground 
of everything they thought and said and did — 
but on that night in the Cherche Midi I was as 
blatant and noisy and proud an American as ever 
there was. We waved the Stars and Stripes and 
shouted the Declaration of Independence at the 
now bewildered officer until he begged us to desist. 
Earlier in our conversation we had discussed the 
mighty effects of journalism and how it visited 
its pleasures and its displeasures. Now we quoted 
the Constitution of the United States and pro- 



ii8 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

duced our passports. We demanded an inunedi- 
ate audience with the American Ambassador. 

Our dinner was waiting, and the officer declared 
finally that if we would only eat it he would see 
what he could do for us, to the extent of telephon- 
ing to the Military Governor. We could hear his 
part of the telephone conversation as we attacked 
our food. We never learned with whom he was 
talking, but he made it strong. He never had 
such persons as ourselves inside his prison and 
he would be devoutly thankful to be rid of us. And 
besides — this was whispered but we caught the 
drift of it — they were Americans, these prisoners, 
and perhaps it might be just as well to send some 
word about them to the American Embassy. 

There was more that we could not hear, but 
finally he informed us that an officer was coming 
from headquarters to talk with us ; that we were to 
wait where we were. 

I do not know what influence, aside from the 
telephone conversation, intervened in our behalf 
that night. But I am sure that conversation had 
little to do with it beyond perhaps securing an 
immediate rather than deferred action. Per- 
haps it was an accident, perhaps a change of opin- 
ion at the Military Governor's headquarters as to 
the sentence that had been passed upon us. At 



THE CHERCHE MIDI 119 

any rate, at the moment we were paying for our 
dinner and demanding a receipt dated from inside 
the prison walls (every one of us kept an eye open 
to newspaper copy in demanding the receipt in 
such fashion) the door was flung open and a high 
Government official whom most of us knew person- 
ally, entered the room. 

His first act was to fling the money from the 
hands of the hotel servant back upon the table — 
snatch the receipts, and tear them in pieces. 

''Gentlemen, the dinners are on me," was his 
greeting. 

A few hours later the military attache of the 
American Embassy who had been roused from his 
bed, explained that Mr. Herrick would undertake 
the personal responsibility for our parole. The 
gates of the Cherche Midi opened. The heavy arm 
of military authority had lightened; but the free 
road to the battle front was still closed. 



CHAPTER XI 

UE"DER THE CEOIX EOUGE 

I NEVER expected to drive a motor ambulance, 
with badly wounded men, down the Champs Ely- 
s^es. But I did. I have done many things since 
the war began that I never expected to do; — ^but 
somehow that magnificent Champs Elysees — and 
ambulances — and groans of wounded seemed a 
combination entirely outside my wildest imagina- 
tions. 

This was a result of the eight days' parole, after 
my release from the Cherche Midi; I was forbid- 
den to write anything concerning my trip to the 
battle fields. 

During those eight days I came to the conclu- 
sion that the popularity of journalism in France 
had reached its lowest ebb. In the antebellum 
days newspapermen were rather highly regarded 
in the French capital. They occasionally got 
almost in the savant class, and folks seemed 
rather glad to sit near their corners of the cafes 
and hearken to their words. I found that now, 

lao 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 121 

in popular estimation, they were several degrees 
below the ordinary criminal, and in fact not far 
above the level of the spy. Also the wording of 
my parole was galling. I could not even write 
private letters to my family, without first obtain- 
ing permission at headquarters of the Military 
Governor. 

We had "run into an important turning move- 
ment of troops on that trip to the front" was the 
final ofiScial reason assigned for our particular 
predicament. We were dangerous ; we might tell 
about that turning movement. Therefore the 
eight days ' parole. 

Nevertheless, for eight days my activities for 
my newspaper were suspended, and even then the 
hope of getting to the front seemed more vague 
than ever. I thought over every plan that might 
produce copy, and finally I called on the Ambas- 
sador — ^which was the usual procedure when one 
had an idea of front-going character. 

'*I am weary of the reputation that has been 
bestowed upon me," I told Mr. Herrick. "I am 
tired of being classified with the thugs and yegg- 
men. I am tired of being an outcast on the face 
of Paris. In other words, for the moment I desire 
to uplift myself from the low level of journalism. 
I desire to don the brassard of the Red Cross." 



122 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

**Yes," said the Ambassador, ''I don't blame 
you. ' ' 

*'A11 right," I rejoined, ''but as a journalist 
they won't have me — unless you give me a bill of 
health. If you tell them I am not so bad as I look 
nor so black as I am painted, I stand a chance. 
I confess frankly that I am actuated by the low 
motives of my profession. I am first and last a 
newspaperman and I believe that a Eed Cross 
ambulance may get me to the battle front. How- 
ever, I am willing to do my share of the work, 
and if I go into the service with my cards face 
up and your guarantee — why — " 

**Yes," replied Mr. Herrick. "And that goes, 
provided you will not use the cable until you leave 
the service." 

I promised. The Ambassador kept his word. 
A week later, vaccinated and injected against dis- 
ease of every character, clad in khaki, with the 
coveted badge of mercy sewed on the left sleeve, 
I was taken into the ranks of the Croix Eouge as 
an ambulance orderly. I remained for two 
months — first hauling wounded from great evac- 
uation stations about Paris to hospitals within 
the walls. Most of our wounded went to the 
American Ambulance, when we broke all speed 
laws going through the Champs Elysees, en route 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 123 

to Neuilly. Later I was stationed at Amiens with 
the second French army, at that time under the 
command of General Castehiau. We slept on the 
floor in a freight station and we worked in the 
black ooze of the railway yards. The battle front 
was still many miles away. 

One morning when the weather was bleakest (it 
was now December) and the black ooze the deep- 
est, and the straw from where I had just risen was 
flattest and moldiest, I received word from Paris 
to get back quick — that at last the War Office would 
send correspondents to the front, and that the 
Foreign Office was preparing the list of neutrals 
who would go. 

I resigned my ambulance job and took the next 
train. But I kept my brassard with the red cross 
upon it. I wanted it as a proof of those hard 
days and sometimes harder nights, when my pro- 
fession was blotted from my mind — and copy 
didn't matter — ^I wanted it because it was my 
badge when I was an ambulance orderly carry- 
ing wounded men, when I came to feel that I was 
contributing something after all, although a neu- 
tral, toward the great sacrifice of the country that 
sheltered me. I shall keep it always for many 
things that I saw and heard ; but I cherish it most 
for my recollection of Trevelyan — ^the Rue Jeanne 



124 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

d'Arc and those from a locality called Quesnoy- 
sur-Somme. 

(A) Trevelyan 

The orderly on the first bus was sitting at atten- 
tion, with arms folded, waiting for orders. It was 
just dawn, but the interior of his bus was clean 
and ready. He always fixed it up at night, when 
the rest of us, dog tired, crept into the dank straw, 
saying we could get up extra early and do it. 

So now we were up "extra early," chauffeurs 
tinkered with engines, and orderlies fumigated 
interiors; and the First Orderly, sitting at the 
head of the column, where he heard things, and 
saw things, got acquainted with Trevelyan. 

The seven American motor ambulances were 
drawn up with a detachment of the British Eed 

Cross in a small village near B , the railhead 

where the base hospital was located, way up near 
the Belgian frontier. The weather was cold. We 
had changed the brown paint on our busses to 
gray, making them less visible against the snow. 
Even the hoods and wheels were gray. All that 
could be seen at a distance were the two big red 
crosses blinking like a pair of eyes on the back 
canvas flaps. The American cars were light and 
fast and could scurry back out of shell range 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 125 

quicker than big lumbering ambulances — of which 
there was a plenty. Therefore we were in 
demand. The morning that the First Orderly met 
Trevelyan our squad commander was in confer- 
ence with the fat major of the Royal Army Medi- 
cal Corps concerning the strenuous business of the 
day. 

Both the First Orderly and Trevelyan were 
Somebodys. It was apparent. It was their caste 
that attracted them to each other. The First 
Orderly was a prominent figure in the Paris Ameri- 
can colony ; he knew the best people on both sides 
of the Atlantic. Now he was an orderly on an 
ambulance because he wanted to see some of the 
war. He wanted to do something in the war. 
There were many like him — neutrals in the ranks 
of the Croix Eouge. 

The detachment of the Royal Army Medical 
Corps to which Trevelyan belonged arrived late 
one night and were billeted in a barn. The Ameri- 
can corps were in the school house, sleeping in 
straw on the wood floor. A small evacuation hos- 
pital was near where the wounded from the field 
hospitals were patched up a little before we took 
them for a long ambulance haul. 

Trevelyan was only an orderly. The American 
corps found this "quaint," as Trevelyan himself 



126 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

would have said. For the orderly of the medical 
corps corresponds to the "ranker" of the army. 
In this war, at a time when officers were the 
crying demand, the gentlemen rankers had almost 
disappeared. Among the American volunteers, 
being the squad commander was somewhat a mat- 
ter of choice and of mechanical knowledge of our 
cars. We all stood on an equal footing. But 
Trevelyan was simply classed as a ''Tommy," so 
far as his medical officers were concerned. 

So he showed a disposition to chum with us. 
He gravitated more particularly to the First 
Orderly, who reported to the chauffeur of the 
second bus that Trevelyan had a most compre- 
hensive understanding of the war; that he had 
also a keen knowledge of medicine and surgery, 
with which the First Orderly had himself tinkered. 

They discussed the value of the war in several 
branches of surgery. The chauffeur of the second 
bus heard Trevelyan expounding to the First 
Orderly on the precious knowledge derived by the 
great hospital surgeons in Paris and London from 
the great numbers of thigh fractures coming in — 
how amputations were becoming always fewer — 
the men walked again, though one leg might be 
shorter, 
f Trevelyan, in his well fitting khaki uniform, 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 127 

seemed from the same mold as hundreds of clean 
built Englishmen; lean face, blond hair. His 
accent was faultlessly upper class. The letter 
*'g" did not occur as a terminating consonant in 
his conversation. The adjectives "rippin' " or 
'^ rotten" conveyed his sentiments one way or the 
other. His hand clasp was firm, his eye direct 
and blue. He was a chap you liked. 

At our midday meal, which was served apart 
for the American contingent, the First Orderly 
asked the corps what they thought of Trevelyan. 
"I've lived three years in England," said the 
chauffeur of the second bus, "and this fellow 
seems to have far less 'side' than most of his 
class. ' ' 

The First Orderly explained that this was 
because Trevelyan had become cosmopolitan — 
traveled a lot, spoke French and Spanish and 
understood Italian, whereas most Englishmen 
scorned to learn any "foreign" tongue. 

"Why isn't he in a regiment — he's so supe- 
rior!" wondered the chauffeur of the second bus. 
The First Orderly maintained stoutly that there 
was some good reason, perhaps family trouble, 
why his new friend was just a common orderly — 
like himself. 

The entire column was then ordered out. They 



128 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

hauled wounded from the field hospitals to the 
evacuation camp until nightfall. After dusk they 
made several trips almost to the trenches. But 
there were fewer wounded than usual. The cold 
had lessened the infantry attacks, though the 
artillery constantly thundered, especially at night- 
fall. 

New orders came in. They were : — Everything 
ready always for a possible quick advance into 

L , wliich was then an advance post. An 

important redistribution of General French's 
"contemptible little army" was hoped for. At 
coffee next morning our squad commander, after 
his customary talk with the fat major, admon- 
ished us to have little to say concerning our affairs 
— that talk was a useless adjunct to war. 

That day again the First Orderly's dinner con- 
versation was of Trevelyan. Their conversation 
of that morning had gotten away from armies and 
surgeons and embraced art people, which were the 
First Orderly's forte. People were his hobby but 
he knew a lot about art. This knowledge had 
developed in the form of landscape gardening at 
the country places of his millionaire friends. It 
appeared that he and Trevelyan had known the 
same families in different parts of the world. 

"He knows the G's," he proclaimed, naming a 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 129 

prominent New York family. " He 's been to their 
villa at Lennox. He spoke of the way the grounds 
are laid out, before he knew I had been there. 
Talked about the box perspective for the Venus 
fountain, that I suggested myself. ' ' 

The corps "joshed" the First Orderly on that: 
asked him whether Trevelyan had yet confided 
the reason for his position in the ranks. The 
First Orderly was indifferent. He waved a knife 
loaded with potatoes — a knife is the chief army 
eating utensil. **He may be anything from an 
Honorable to a Duke," he said, ''but I don't like 
to ask, for you know how Englishmen are about 
those things. I have found, though, that he did 
the Vatican and Medici collections only a year ago 
with some friends of mine, and I'm going to sound 
them about him sometime." 

There were sharp engagements that afternoon 
and the corps was kept busy. At nightfall, the 
booming of the artillery was louder — ^nearer, espe- 
cially on the left, where the French heavy artillery 
had come up the day before to support the Brit- 
ish line. The ambulance corps was ordered to 
prepare for night work. They snatched plates of 
soup and beans, and sat on the busses, waiting. 

At eight o'clock a shell screamed over the line 
of cars, then another, and two more. "They've 



130 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

got the range on us," the fat Major said. We'll 
have to clear out." Eighteen shells passed over- 
head before the equipment and the few remaining 
wounded got away and struck the road to the main 
base at B . 

The American squad was billeted that night in 
the freight station — dropping asleep as they sank 
into the straw on the floor. At midnight an Eng- 
lish colonel's orderly entered and called the squad 
commander. They went out together; then the 
squad commander returned for the Orderly of the 
first bus. The chauffeur of the second bus waked 
when they returned after several hours, and heard 
them through the gloom groping their way to nests 
in the straw. They said nothing. 

It was explained in the morning at coffee. 
*'Trevelyan" had been shot at sunrise. He was 
a German spy. 

(B) The Eue Jeanne d'Akc 

We were sitting in a cafe at the aperitif hour 
— an hour that survives the war. We were sta- 
tioned in a city of good size in Northern France, 
a city famous for its cathedral and its cheese. 
Just now it was a haven for refugees, and an 
evacuation center for wounded. The Germans 
had been there, as the patronne of the cafe Lion 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 131 

d'Or narrated at length to every one who would 
listen; but now the battle lines were some dis- 
tance away. If the wind came from the right di- 
rection when the noise of the city was hushed by 
military order at nightfall, the haunting boom- 
boo-o-m of heavy artillery could be faintly heard. 
No one who has heard that sound ever forgets it. 
Dynamite blasting sounds just about the same, 
but in the sound of artillery, when one knows that 
it is artillery, there seems the knell of doom. 

The cafe was crowded at the aperitif hour. 
The fat face of the patronne was wreathed in 
smiles. Any one is mistaken who imagines that 
all Northern France is lost from human view in 
a dense rolling cloud of battle smoke. At any 
rate, in the Cafe d'Or one looked upon life un- 
changed. True, there were some new clients in 
the place of old ones. There were a half dozen 
soldiers in khaki, and we of the American ambu- 
lance column, dressed in the same cloth. In a 
corner sat a young lieutenant in the gorgeous 
blue of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, drinking ver- 
mouth with a grizzled captain of artillery. Other 
French uniforms dotted the place. The "honest 
bourgeois" were all there — the chief supports of 
the establishment in peace or war. They missed 
the evening aperitif during the twelve days of 



132 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

German occupation, but now all were in their ac- 
customed places. For the places of oldtimers are 
sacred at the Lion d'Or. 

Madame la patronne acted in place of her hus- 
band, who was now safely serving in the cooking 
department of the army, some kilometers from 
the firing line. Madame sat contentedly at the 
caisse superintending the activities of two youth- 
ful, inexperienced gargons. The old waiters, 
Jean and Andre, vanished into the ^'zone of mili- 
tary activity" on the first day of the war. After 
several post cards, Jean had not been heard from. 
Andre was killed at the battle of the Mame. 

We had heard the garrulous tale of the German 
occupation many times. It was thrillingly re- 
vealed, both at the Eestaurant de Commerce and 
the Hotel de Soleil. At the Lion d'Or it was 
Madame 's absorbing theme, when she was not 
haranguing the new waiters or counting change. 
Madame had remained throughout the trouble. 
''But yes, to be sure." She was not the woman 
to flee and leave the Lion d'Or to the invaders. 
Her ample form was firmly ensconced behind the 
caisse when the first of the Uhlans entered. They 
were officers, and — ^wonder of wonders — they 
spoke French. The new waiters were hiding in 
the cellar, so Madame clambered from her chair 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 133 

with dignity, and placed glasses and drink before 
them. And then — would wonders never cease 1 — 
these Germans had actually paid — even overpaid, 
ma foi — for one of them flung a golden half louis 
on the counter, and stalked from the place refus- 
ing change. Of course at the Hotel de Ville, the 
invaders behaved differently. There the Mayor 
was called upon for one million francs — ^war 
indemnity. But that was a matter for the city 
and not for the individual. Madame still had 
that golden half louis and would show it if we 
cared to see. Grold was scarce and exceedingly 
precious. The sight of it was good. 

Now the Germans were gone — forced out, grace 
a Dieu, so the good citizens no longer lived in the 
cellars. They were again in their places at the 
Lion d'Or, sipping vermouth and offering grati- 
tude to the military regime that had the decency 
to allow cafes open until eight o'clock. Outside 
the night was cold and a fine drizzle beat against 
the windows. Several newcomers shivered and 
remarked that it must be terrible in the trenches. 
But the electric lights, the clinking glasses on the 
marble tables, the rattling coins, soon brought 
them into the general line of speculation on how 
long it would take to drive the Germans from 
France. 



134 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

For a hundred years the cafes have been the 
Forum of France. The Lion d'Or had for that 
entire period been the scene of fierce verbal 
encounters between members of more political 
and religious faiths than exist in any other nation 
of the world. Every Frenchman, no matter how 
humble in position or purse has decided opinions 
about something. But now the voices in the Lion 
d'Or arose only in appellations concerning les 
Boches. There was unanimity of opinion on the 
absorbing subject of the war. 

The members of the American ambulance 
column sat at a table near the door. Our khaki 
always brought looks of friendly interest. 
Almost every one took us to be English, and even 
those who learned the truth were equally pleased. 
We finished the aperitif and consulted about din- 
ner. "We were off duty — ^we might either return 
for the army mess or buy our own meal at the 
restaurant. We paid the gargon and decided upon 
the restaurant a few doors away. Several of the 
men were struggling into their rubber coats. I 
told them that I would follow shortly. I had just 
caught a sentence from across the room that 
thrilled me. It held a note of mystery — or trag- 
edy. It brought life out of the commonplace nor- 
mality of aperitif hour at the Lion d'Or. 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 135 

The speakers were two Frenchmen of middle 
age — fat and bearded. They were dressed in 
ordinary black, but wore it with a ceremonial 
rather than conventional manner. The atmos- 
phere of the city did not seem upon them. They 
might rather be the butcher and the grocer of a 
small town. One of the pair had sat alone for 
some time before the second arrived. I had 
noticed him. He seemed to have no acquaint- 
ances in the place — ^which was unusual. He drank 
two cognacs in rapid succession — ^which was still 
more unusual. One drink always satisfies a 
Frenchman at aperitif hour — and it is very sel- 
dom cognac. 

When the second man entered the other started 
from his seat and held out both hands eagerly. 
' * So you got out safe ! ' ' were the words I heard ; 
but our crowd was hurrying toward the door, and 
I lost the actual greeting. I ordered another ver- 
mouth and waited. 

The two men were seated opposite each other. 
The first man nervously motioned to the waiter 
and the newcomer gave his order. It was plain 
that they were both excited, but the table adjoin- 
ing was unoccupied, so they attracted no atten- 
tion. The noisy waiter, banging bottles on the 
table, drowned out the next few sentences. Then 



136 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

I heard the second man: ''So I got out first, but 
you managed to get here yesterday — a day in 
advance. ' ' 

The other replied: *'I was lucky enough to get 
a horse. They were shelling the market place 
when I left." 

The second man gulped his drink and plucked 
nervously at the other's sleeve. ''My wife is at 
the hotel," he almost mumbled the words, "I 
must tell her — you said the market place. But 
how about the Eue Jeanne d'Arc? — her sister 
lived there. She remained." 

"How about the Rue Jeanne d'Arc?" the other 
repeated. He clucked his tongue sympathetically. 
"That was all destroyed in the morning." 

The second man drew a handkerchief from his 
pocket and mopped the sweat from his forehead. 

(C) Those fkom Quesnoy-sur-Somme 

They were climbing out of the cattle cars into 
the mud of the freight yards. They numbered 
about fifty, — the old, the halt, the blind and the 
children. We were whizzing past on a motor 
ambulance with two desperately wounded men 
inside, headed for a hospital a half mile away. 
The Medical Major said that unless we hurried the 
men would probably be dead when we arrived. 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 137 

So we could not lessen speed as those from Ques- 
noy-sur-Somme descended painfully from the cat- 
tle cars. Instead, we sounded the siren for them 
to get out of our way. The mud from our wheels 
splattered them. But it was not mud — ^not regu- 
lar mud. It was black unhealthy ooze, generated 
after a month of rain in the aged layers of train 
soot. It was full of fever germs. Typhoid was 
on the rampage. 

As we passed the sentinels at the gates of the 
yards we were forced to halt in a jam of ammu- 
nition and food wagons. To the army that sur- 
vives is given the first thought. The wounded 
in the ambulance could wait. We took right of 
way only over civilians — including refugees. 

We asked a sentinel concerning those descend- 
ing from the cattle cars, ^^Id has." He said they 
came from a place called Quesnoy-sur-Somnae. 
It was not a city he told us, nor a town — not even 
a village. Just a straggling hamlet along the 
river bank — a place called Quesnoy-sur-Somme. 

The past tense was the correct usage of the 
verb. The place was that ; but now — now it is just 
a black path of desolation beside a lifeless river. 
The artillery had thundered across the banks for 
a month. The fish floated backs down on the 
water. 



138 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

When the ammunition and food wagons gave 
us room enough, we again raced through the 
streets and delivered our wounded at the hos- 
pital — aUve. Then we returned to the freight 
yards for more. Several ambulance columns had 
worked through the night from the field hospitals 
to the freight yards. There the men were sorted 
and the less desperate cases entrained. 

We plowed our way carefully through the 
ooze of the yards, for ahead of us walked those 
from Quesnoy-sur-Somme on their way to the 
gare. They walked slowly — painfully, except the 
children, who danced beside our running board 
and laughed at the funny red crosses painted on 
the canvas sides of the ambulance. It was rain- 
ing — as usual. The sky was the coldest gray in 
the universe, and the earth and dingy buildings, 
darker in tone, were still more dismal. But one 
tiny child had a fat slab of bread covered thickly 
with red jam. She raised her sticky pink face to 
ours and laughed gloriously. She waved her 
pudgy fist holding the bread and jam, and shouted, 
* ' Vive la France ! ' ' 

We were now just crawling through the mire. 
The refugees surrounded us on all sides. The 
mother seized the waving little arm, and dragged 
the child away. The woman did not look at us. 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 139 

She just plodded along, eyes fixed on the mud that 
closed over her shoes at every step. She was 
bareheaded and the rain glistened in great drops 
upon her hair. The child hung back. The 
mother merely tightened her grip, doggedly pa- 
tient. She was past either curiosity or reproof. 

Our car ran so slowly that accidentally we 
killed the engine. I got out to crank her up and 
meantime the forlorn mass surged by. Two sol- 
diers herded them over the slippery tracks to a 
shed beside the gare where straggled some rough 
benches. We lined our car up behind the other 
ambulances. Then we went to look at the refu- 
gees. 

They had dropped onto the benches, except the 
children. The littlest ones tugged fretfully at 
their mothers' skirts. The others ran gleefully 
about, fascinated by the novelty of things. It was 
a holiday. Several Eed Cross women were feed- 
ing the crowd, passing about with big hampers of 
bread and pots of coffee. Each person received 
also a tin of dried meat ; and a cheese was served 
to every four. We helped carry the hampers. 

Most of the refugees did not even look at us; 
they did not raise their eyes from the mud. They 
reached out their hands and took what we gave 
them. Then they held the food in their laps, 



140 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

listless; or staring out across the yards into the 
wet dusk. 

One or two of them talked. They had been 
hustled out at sunrise. The French army thought 
they had occupied that dangerous place long 
enough. There was no longer hope for any living 
thing remaining. So they came away — bringing 
nothing with them, herded along the line by sol- 
diers. Where they were going they did not know. 
It did not matter where. "C'est la guerre! It 
is terrible — yes." They shrugged their shoul- 
ders. It is war ! 

One old man, nearly blind and very lame, sat 
forlornly at one end of the line. He pulled at 
an empty pipe. We gave him some tobacco — 
some fresh English tobacco. He knew that it was 
not French when he rolled it in his hand. So we 
explained the brand. We explained patiently, for 
he was very deaf. He was delighted. He had 
heard of English tobacco, but had never had any. 
He stuffed the pipe eagerly and lit it. He leaned 
back against the cold stone wall and puffed in 
ecstasy. Ah ! this English tobacco was good. He 
was fortunate. 

We glanced back along the line. As we looked 
several of the women shrank against the wall. 
One covered her eyes. Two French ambulances 



UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE 141 

passed, carrying a wounded Zouave on a stretcher. 
A yard engine went shrieking across their 
path and the ambulanciers halted. The huddled 
figure under the blankets groaned horribly. Then 
the procession proceeded to our first ambulance. 
The men were on the seat, ready for the race 
against time to the hospital. . 

After a few minutes the soldiers who had 
herded the refugees into the shed came again to 
herd them out — back to the cattle cars. I asked 
one of the soldiers where they were going. He 
waved his hand vaguely toward the south. La 
has/' he muttered. He didn't know exactly. 
They were going somewhere — that was all. 
There was no place for them here. This station 
was for wounded. And would they ever return? 
He shrugged his shoulders. 

I looked at the forlorn procession sloshing 
across the yards. The rain beat harder. It was 
almost dark; the yard lamps threw dismal, sickish 
gleams across the tracks. The old man with the 
tobacco brought up the rear, helped along by an 
old woman hobbling on a stick. 

We heard the voice of the Medical Major bawl- 
ing for *4es ambulances Americaines.*' We 
looked behind into the gloom of the gare; a pro- 
cession emerged — stretchers with huddled forms 



142 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

under blankets. As far down the yards as we 
could see — just on the edge of the night, those 
from Quesnoy-sur-Somme were climbing slowly 
into the cattle cars. 



PART FOUE 
WAR-CORRESPONDINa DE LUXE 



CHAPTEB Xn 

OUT WITH CAPTAIN BLANK 

"Grand Quartier General!" The sentry 
barring the road jerked his rifle instantly to 
rigid salute. The speaker sat beside the chauf- 
feur of a big limousine. He wore a wonderful 
new horizon-blue captain's uniform, but on his left 
arm was the colored silken brassard of the Great 
General headquarters staff. It meant that the 
wearer was the direct agent of Pere Joffre, and 
though sentries dotted our route the chauffeur 
never once brought the car to a full halt. 

Two other neutral correspondents were in the 
car with me. The tonneau was comfortably 
heated and electrically lighted. Our baggage was 
carried in other cars behind us, in charge of order- 
lies. Still other cars carried an armed escort, in 
case of sudden attack on the lines. 

For at last we were going forth officially to the 
front. No sentry could stop us. No officer could 
** detain" us — there was no fear of prison at our 
journey's end. It had been decided by Pere 
Joffre himself; and ''Himself" had appointed the 

145 



146 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Captain, whose orders were to remain with ns even 
after our return to Paris, where he would wait to 
place the magic vise of the Etat Major upon our 
despatches, thus preventing any delays at the 
regular Bureau de Censure. 

Comfortable rooms had been reserved in hotels 
of little villages behind the trenches. Far in 
advance meals had been commanded to be ready 
at the hours of our arrival. Every detail of each 
day's program had been carefully arranged. 
And in case we did become accidentally sepa- 
rated from our Captain, each of us carried a pass 
issued by the Ministry of War bearing our photo- 
graphs and in dramatic language fully accredit- 
ing us as correspondents to the armies of the 
Eepublic. 

So we lighted our cigars and lolled at our ease, 
feeling our own importance just a bit as each sen- 
try saluted respectfully the Captain's silken bras- 
sard. 

In the company of Captain Blank I have 
secured the greatest part of the cable copy that 
the war has furnished me, but on that first ride 
through the snow fields of Northern France, I 
little realized that on my return to Paris I would 
send America the most important cable that I had 
ever filed in my life : for it was the first detailed 



OUT WITH CAPTAIN BLANK 147 

description of the French army permitted for 
publication after the battle of the Mame. Many 
times during that trip we asked each other what 
''news" there was in all that we saw that was 
worth cabling, when a five-cent postage stamp 
would carry it by letter. It was all interesting, 
some of it decidedly exciting ; but not once did we 
witness a general engagement of the army. 
There was no storming of forts, no charges of the 
cavalry, no capitulation of troops. It was just 
the deadly winter waiting in the trenches, with the 
sentries who never slept at the port-holes and the 
artillery incessantly pounding away at the rear. 
I decided that there was nothing worth cabling in 
the story. 

When I returned to Paris, and a steam-heated 
apartment, the reaction on my physical forces was 
so great that I went to bed for several days with 
the grippe. As I impatiently fumed to get to 
work on the story of my trip, it suddenly dawned 
upon me that it was a cable story after all. Why, 
it was one of the biggest cable stories possible — 
it was the story of the French army. I had just 
been permitted a real view of it, the first accorded 
any correspondent in so comprehensive a manner. 
I had followed a great section of the fighting line, 
had been in the trenches under fire, and had 



148 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

received scientific, detailed information regarding 
this least known of European forces. 

True, we correspondents knew what a power- 
ful machine it was. We knew it was getting 
stronger every day. But America did not, and 
Germany meanwhile was granting interviews, 
taking correspondents to the trenches and up in 
balloons and aeroplanes in their campaign for neu- 
tral sympathy. Now France, or rather General 
Joffre — for his was the first and last word on 
the subject of war correspondents — had decided 
to combat the German advertising. Captain 
Blank was still waiting in Paris for my copy — 
cable copy marked ''rush" — which I dictated in 
bed. 

''This army has nothing to hide," said one of 
the greatest generals to me, during the trip. 
' ' You see what you like, go where you desire and 
if you cannot get there, ask. ' ' 

While our party did all the spectacular stunts 
the Germans had offered the correspondents in 
such profusion, such as visiting the trenches, 
where once a German shell burst thirty feet from 
us, splattering us with mud, where also snipers 
sent rifle balls hissing only a few feet away, our 
greatest treats were the scientific daily discourses 
given by Captain Blank, touching the entire his- 



OUT WITH CAPTAIN BLANK 149 

tory of the first campaign, explaining each event 
leading up to the present position of the two 
armies. He gave the exact location of every 
French and Allied army corps on the entire front. 

On the opposite side of the line he demonstrated 
the efficiency of the French secret service by giv- 
ing full details of the position and name of every 
German regiment, even to the date of its arrival. 

Our Captain explained the second great Ger- 
man blunder after their failure to occupy Paris. 
This was their mistake in not at once swinging 
a line across Northern France, cutting off Calais 
and Boulogne, where they could have leveled a 
pistol at England's head. He explained that the 
superior French cavalry dictated that the line 
should instead run straight north through the 
edge of Belgium to the sea. And he refuted 
by many military arguments the theory that cav- 
alry became obsolete with the advent of aero- 
planes. 

Cavalry formerly was used to screen the infan- 
try advance and also for shock purposes in the 
charges. Now that the lines are established, it 
is mostly used with the infantry in the trenches; 
but in the great race after the Marne to turn the 
western flanks it was the cavalry's ability to out- 
strip the infantry that kept the Germans from 



150 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

possession of all Northern France. In other 
words, the French chausseurs, more brilliant than 
the Uhlans, kept that northern line straight until 
the infantry corps had time to take up position. 

Once, on passing from the second line to a point 
less than a hundred yards from the German rifles, 
I came face to face with a general of division. 
He was sauntering along for his morning's stroll, 
which he chose to take in the trenches with his 
men rather than on the safer roads at the rear. 
He smoked a cigarette and seemed careless of dan- 
ger. He continually patted his soldiers on the 
back as he passed and called them "his little 
braves. ' ' 

I could not help wondering then and since 
whether the German general opposite was setting 
his men the same splendid example. I inquired 
the French general's name; he was General Fay- 
olle, conceded by all the armies to be one of the 
greatest artillery experts in the world. Com- 
radeship between officers and men always is gen- 
eral in the French army, but I never before rea- 
lized fully the officers' willingness to accept the 
same fate as their men. 

In Paris the popular appellation for a German 
is '^boche." Not once at the front did I hear this 
word used by officers or men. They deplore it, 



OUT WITH CAPTAIN BLANK 151 

just as they deplore many things that happen in 
Paris. Every officer I talked to declared the Ger- 
mans were a brave, strong enemy; they waste no 
time calling them names. 

''They are wonderful, but we will beat them," 
was the way one officer summed up the general 
feeling. 

Another illustration of the French officer at 
the front: the city of Vermelles, of 10,000 inhabi- 
tants, was captured from the Germans after 
thirty-four days' fighting. It was taken literally 
from house to house, the French engineers sap- 
ping and mining the Germans out of every strong- 
hold, destroying every single house, incidentally 
forever upsetting my own one-time idea that the 
French are a frivolous people. So determined 
were they to retake this town that they fought in 
the streets with artillery at a distance of twenty- 
one feet, probably the shortest range artillery 
duel in the history of the world. 

The Germans before the final evacuation buried 
hundreds of their own dead. Every yard in the 
city was filled with little crosses — the ground was 
so trampled that the mounds of graves were 
crushed down level with the ground — and on the 
crosses are printed the names, with the number 
of the German regiments. At the base of every 



152 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

cross rested either a crucifix or a statue of the 
Virgin or a wreath of artificial flowers, all looted 
from the French graveyard. 

With the German graves were French graves, 
made afterward. I walked through this ruined 
city where, aside from the soldiers, the only sign 
of life I saw was a gaunt, prowling cat. With 
me, past these hundreds of graves, walked half 
a dozen French officers. They did not pause to 
read inscriptions; they did not comment on the 
loot and pillage of the graveyard; they scarcely 
looked even at the graves, but they constantly 
raised their hands to their caps in salute, regard- 
less of whether the crosses marked a French or a 
German life destroyed. 
Another illustration of French humanity: 
We were driving along back of the advance 
lines. On the road before us a company of terri- 
torial infantry, after eight days in the trenches, 
were now marching back to two days of repose 
at the rear. Plodding along the same road was 
a refugee mother and several little children in a 
donkey cart; behind the cart, attached by a rope, 
trundled a baby buggy with the youngest child 
inside. The buggy suddenly struck a rut in the 
road and overturned, spilling the baby into the 
mud. Terrible wails arose; the soldiers stiffened 



OUT WITH CAPTAIN BLANK 153 

to attention. Then, seeing the accident, the entire 
company broke ranks and rescued the infant. 
They wiped the dirt from its face and helped the 
mother to bestow it again in the cart. 

Our motor had halted; and our captain from 
the Great General Headquarters, in his gorgeous 
blue uniform, climbed from the car, and discussed 
with the mother the safety of a baby buggy rid- 
ing behind a donkey cart; at the same time con- 
gratulating the soldier who had rescued the child. 

I took a brief ride at the front in an ante-bellum 
motorbus, — there being nothing left in Paris but 
the trams and subway. Busses have since been 
used to carry fresh meat, to transport troops and 
also ammunition. We trundled merrily along a 
little country road, the snow-white fields on either 
side in strange contrast to the scenery when last 
I rode in that bus, in my daily trips from my 
home to the Times office in Paris. The bus was 
now riddled with bullets, but the soldier conduc- 
tor still jingles the bell to the motorman, although 
he carries a revolver where he formerly wore the 
register for fares. 

Trench life was one of the surprises of the trip. 
Every night since the war began I had heard pity- 
ing remarks about "the boys in the trenches," 
especially if the nights were cold. I was, there- 



154 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

fore, prepared to find the men standing in water 
to the knees, shivering, wretched, sick and 
unhappy. I found just the contrary — the 
trenches were clean, large and sanitary, although, 
of course, mud is mud. The bottoms of the 
trenches in every instance were corduroy-lined 
with modern drains, which keep the feet perfectly 
dry. In the large dugouts the men, except those 
doing sentry duty, sleep comfortably on dry straw. 
There are special dugouts for officers and artil- 
lery observers. 

Although the maps show the lines of fighting 
to be rather wavy, one must go to the front really 
to appreciate the zigzag, snake-like line that it 
really is. The particular bit of trenches we vis- 
ited covered a front of twelve miles; but so 
irregular was the line, so intricate and vast the 
system of intrenchments, that they measured 
200 miles on that particular twelve-mile fighting 
front. 

Leaving the trenches at the rear of the com- 
munication hoyaux, it is astonishing how little of 
the war can be seen. Ten feet after we left our 
trenches we could not see even the entrance. We 
stood in a beautiful open field having our pictures 
taken, and a few hundred yards away our motor 
waited behind some trees. Suddenly we heard a 



OUT WITH CAPTAIN BLANK 155 

''zip zip" over our heads. German snipers were 
taking shots at us. 

With all considerations for the statement that 
the Germans have the greatest fighting machine 
the world has ever seen, the French army to me 
seemed invincible from the standpoints of power, 
intelligence and humanity. This latter quality, 
judging from the generals in command to the men 
in the trenches, especially impressed me. I did 
not and I do not believe that an army with such 
ideals as the French army can be beaten. 

So I wrote my cable and sent it to Captain 
Blank. He vised it, at the same time sending 
me a letter which I cherish among my possessions. 
He thanked me for the sentiments I had expressed 
and told me that a copy of the story would be sent 
to General Joffre. 

A few days later I met the doyen of war cor- 
respondents, Frederick Villiers, in a boulevard 
cafe. He was out with me on that trip. But he 
began war-corresponding with Archibald Forbes 
at the battle of Plevna. This is his seventeenth 
war. I said to him: 

"Mr. Villiers, what did you do with the story 
of this trip to the front ; you who have been in so 
many battles; you who have had a camel shot 
under you in the desert; you who escaped from 



156 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Port Arthur; you who have seen more war than 
any living man? What do you think of this latest 
edition of war!" 

He answered : " It is different, very different, in 
many ways ; but this trip from which we have just 
returned is the biggest war spectacle that I've 
ever had!" 

Villiers, too, had seen the French army. 



CHAPTER Xni 

JOFFKE 

' * Give the French a leader and they can do any- 
thing." Before the war and since I have heard 
this thought more than any other expressed in 
cafes, homes and political assemblies. 

Forty-four years before the present war, almost 
to a day, France discovered that her last Napo- 
leon had only the name of his great ancestor, and 
none of his genius. During all that time she had 
prayed for a new leader — not of the name, for 
Bonaparte princes may not even fight for France 
— but for genius sufficient to restore her former 
military prestige among the nations. 

General Joffre, at the beginning of the war, 
had been head of the army for only three years. 
He had received his supreme command as a com- 
promise between political parties. No one knew 
anything about him — ^he had a good military 
record and was considered *'safe." But at the 
last grand maneuvers he had given the nation a 
sudden jar by unceremoniously and without com- 
ment dismissing five gold-laced generals. 

152 



158 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

On one of the first days of the war, at four in 
the morning, I was walking home — all taxis were 
mobilized — after a night passed in writing cable 
copy for my newspaper concerning the momen- 
tous tragedy that faced the world. 

I was accompanied by a journalistic confrere; 
our route led along the Quai d'Orsay, past the 
Foreign Office, where the Cabinet of France had 
been sitting all night in war council. It was just 
daybreak. The sun was beginning to glint on 
the waters of the Seine. We walked up the Bou- 
levard des Invalides and halted, without speak- 
ing, but in common thought, before the tomb of 
Napoleon Bonaparte. The sun suddenly broke in 
splendor over the golden dome. 

"It seems like a good omen," I said to my 
friend. 

"Yes — if France had a Napoleon to-day ..." 
was his reply. 

He was a newcomer to Paris. 

"Tell me about the Commander-in-Chief," he 
asked me. "Who is Joffre, anyway?" 

I told him what everybody knew, which was 
almost nothing. 

Now let me shift the picture from the tomb of 
Napoleon on a sunny morning in August. It is 
a bleak day on the undulating plains of Cham- 



JOFFRE 159 

pagne — a few kilometers to tlie rear of the battle- 
lines, where the French had been steadily gaining 
ground for several weeks. Only the week before 
they brilliantly stormed the hills where the Ger- 
mans had entrenched after the battle of the 
Marne, and they captured every position. 

A fine drizzle had been falling since early morn- 
ing, making the ground soggy and slippery. Along 
the roads the crowds of peasants and inhabitants 
of near-by villages are sloshing toward the great 
open plain. But all the roads are barred by sen- 
tries and they are turned back. No civilian eyes 
except those of a half dozen newspapermen may 
see what is to happen there. Yes, something is 
to happen there — something impressive — some- 
thing soul-stirring — but there are to be no cheer- 
ing spectators, no heraldry and no pomp. 

It is to be a military pageant, without the 
crowd. It is a change from the ante-bellum mili- 
tary show at Longchamps on the fourteenth of 
July, when the tri-color waved everywhere, when 
the President of the Republic and the generals of 
the army in brilliant uniforms reviewed the troops 
of France, and all the great world was there to 
see. 

This is to be a review of the troops who took 
the bills back there a little way, sweeping on and 



i6o PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

up to victory while a nmrderous German fire 
poured into them, dropping them by thousands. 
Through that clump of trees sticking up in the 
mud, are little crosses marking the graves of the 
dead. 

Fifteen thousand of the victorious troops will 
pass in review to-day before the Commander-in- 
Chief of the Allied armies. Down across the field 
you can hear the distant notes of a bugle. They 
are taken up by other buglers at various points. 
Then across the field comes a regimental band. 
The players have been in the charge too — with 
rifles instead of musical instruments. This is 
their first chance to play in months — and play 
they do. You hear the martial notes of the Mar- 
seillaise floating across the field, played with a 
force that must have been heard in the German 
lines. 

The regiments take up their positions at one 
side of the field. General Langle de Carry, com- 
mander of the army that did the Champagne fight- 
ing, with only a half dozen officers, take positions 
at the reviewing stand. The reviewing stand is 
a hillock of mud. Both general and officers wear 
the long overcoats of the light ''horizon blue," 
the new color of the French army. 



JOFFRE i6i 

A man emerges from the line of trees behind 
the group and plows his way across the mud. He 
is large and bulky. He plants his feet firmly at 
each step — splashing the mud out in aU directions. 
He wears a short jacket of the ''horizon blue" and 
no overcoat. He wears the old red trousers of the 
beginning of the war. His hat, around which you 
can see the golden band of oak leaves signifying 
that he is a general, is pulled low over his eyes. 
Drops of rain are on his grizzled mustache. A 
leather belt is about his powerful body, but he 
wears no sword. 

Langle de Carry and his officers whirl about 
quickly at his approach. Every hand is raised in 
salute. The bulky man touches the visor of his hat 
in response — then plants both his large ungloved 
fists upon his hips. His feet are spread slightly 
apart. He speaks to de Carry in a low voice. 
As you have already guessed, this big man is 
Joffre. 

You were told at the beginning of the war that 
Joffre was a little fat man — like Napoleon. That 
is not true. Joffre is a big man. He is even a 
tall man, but does not look so because of his bulk. 
Few men possess, at his age, such a powerful or 
so healthy a body. That is why he can cover so 



i62 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

many miles of battle front in his racing auto every- 
day. That is why he shows not the slightest sign 
of the wear and tear of war. 

No time is lost in conversation. The bugles 
blew again and the regiments of heroes began 
their march past the muddy reviewing stand. 
Even in their battle-stained uniforms, every regi- 
ment looked *' smart." When they came abreast 
of Joffre, stolidly and solidly standing a step in 
advance of the others, the long line of rifles raised 
in salute is as straight as ever that of a German 
regiment on parade at Potsdam, despite deep and 
slippery mud. 

After the infantry came the famous ''seventy- 
fives" with the same machine-like precision that 
before the war we always associated with Ger- 
mans. The review ends with a regiment of heavy 
cavalry — cuirassiers — coming at full charge, ris- 
ing high in their stirrups, with swords aloft, and 
breaking into a battle yell when they passed 
''Father Joffre," as he is called by his soldiers. 

Through it all he stands motionless, feet apart, 
one hand planted on his hip, raising the other to 
the visor of his hat, peering beneath it straight 
ahead with unblinking eyes. As the men pass 
this general without a sword, with no medals, no 
gold braid, no overcoat — and in old red trousers 



JOFFRE 163 

— the rain pelting upon him, the look on their 
faces is one of adoration. It matters not to them 
that there are no cheering crowds, no crashing 
bands, no gala atmosphere. The one eye in 
France that they care about is upon them. 

The long line then forms facing him, and the 
men to receive decorations advance. One of them 
— a private — is to receive the medaille militaire, 
the greatest war decoration in the world, for it 
can only be given to privates, or to generals com- 
manding armies who have already received the 
G-rand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Joffre him- 
self only won it after the battle of the Mame. 

The private now to receive the medal is brought 
before the Commander-in-Chief, who pins it upon 
his breast. Joffre throws both his great arms 
about the private's shoulders and kisses him on 
both cheeks. The long line of soldiers remains 
perfectly quiet. But in the eyes of many of them 
are tears. 

The program is ended. Father Joffre gets into 
his low, gray automobile and disappears in a swirl 
of mud, to some other part of the ''zone of opera- 
tions. ' ' 

The army now knows it has the real leader that 
it waited for so long. To the general public of 
France Joffre is still a mystery. But they are 



1 64 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

content with their mystery — they have faith in 
him. That is the spirit of the new France — a 
quiet faith and determination that certainly has 
deceived the rest of the world, especially Ger- 
many. It is the spirit of a nation that has found 
itself, and Joffre typifies it. 

A few books have appeared giving some infor- 
mation about the Commander-in-Chief. They 
deal chiefly with his march to Timbuctoo and his 
career in Indo-China. For the rest, Parisians 
know that before the war he lived quietly in a 
little villa in Auteuil, and that next to his love 
for his family, the things he regarded as best in 
all the world are peace and fishing. Recently it 
was learned that he commandeered a barge on one 
of the rivers near the battle line — and there he 
sometimes sits and quietly fishes while thinking 
out new army plans. His only other recreation 
at the front is reading at night before going to 
bed from his favorite authors, Balzac, Dumas and 
Charles Dickens. Joffre understands English 
and reads it but will not speak it. *'It is that he 
has an accent which he likes not," explained one 
of his officers. 

What Parisians cannot understand is how it 
was that this quiet, perfectly unemotional man 
came into being in the Midi — as Southern France 



JOFFRE 165 

is called. From the Midi, as from Corsica, come 
the hotheads and the firebrands. The crowd cer- 
tainly expected, when this war came, that the 
Commander-in-Chief of the army would give 
Paris a real treat before going forth to battle — 
that he would parade the boulevards in dress uni- 
form at the head of his troops. Alas! Paris 
has scarcely heard a band play since the war be- 
gan. 

All the time that Joffre lived in the little villa 
in Auteuil he was planning and waiting for the 
day when he should go forth to battle. He was a 
fatalist to the extent that he felt by reason of his 
appointment to office three years before that he 
was the chosen man to administer "the revenge" 
— that he would lead the armies of France against 
Germany. He never forgot it for an instant. It 
was Joffre who did everything that a human being 
could do before the war, to prepare for the day. 
It was Joffre who perfected the scheme of mobili- 
zation, so that France was not caught entirely un- 
prepared. 

The word '^prepare" was always on his lips. 
His command of language is forcible, as his 
** orders of the day" have shown. In one of his 
early addresses to the students of the Ecole Poly- 
technique, his closing words, uttered with a vigor 



i66 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

that simply burned into the students, were : ' ' May 
God forgive France if she is not ready." 

And so when the war drums indeed began to 
roll — when a military regime was declared 
throughout France, and the politicians entered 
either into retirement or uniform — France sud- 
denly learned that she had a regular czar on the 
job. The dismissal of five generals at maneuvers 
was not a patch on what was about to happen to 
the gold-laced brigade — after the battle of Char- 
leroi, for instance. Joffre has retired so many 
generals that the public has lost track of the num- 
ber. Usually he does it with an utterly discon- 
certing lack of comment or explanation. Only 
occasionally does he assign that General Blank 
has been dropped from active service ''for rea- 
sons of health." 

But he is just as quick with promotions. The 
brilliant de Maud'huy, for instance, who was only 
a brigade commander in the battle of the Marne, 
now commands an entire army. 

I asked a high officer concerning the war coun- 
cils at the ''Grand Quartier General." His reply 
was brief. "The war council," he said, "is 
Joffre. He just tells everybody what to do — and 
they do it." That is Napoleonic enough, isn't it? 
Not even the President of France may go to the 



JOFFRE 167 

front without Joffre's permission — and if the 
Minister of War entered the zone of operations 
without a laisser-passer from the Grand Quartier 
General he would very likely be arrested. Only 
Joffre would call it '^ detention" — not arrest. 

And as for journalists in that forbidden zone of 
operations — well — has not enough been written 
already concerning journalists going to jail? 
But even to journalists Joffre is entirely fair — 
only journalists must play the game according to 
Joffre's rules. 

I happen to know that Joffre has a thoroughly 
organized press clipping bureau at the Ministry 
of War and every week marked papers — particu- 
larly those of neutral nations — are presented to 
him. One of my proud possessions is a letter that 
I received from an officer of this bureau stating 
that one of my cables to the New York Times had 
been favorably commented on by the Commander- 
in-Chief. 

*'Is this man a great military genius?" is still 
a question often asked — despite the fact that he 
has a hold on the army such as no man has had 
since Napoleon Bonaparte. The war is not over. 
The Germans are still in France. Nevertheless 
all military observers and critics with whom I 
have talked agree on one point. That is that the 



i68 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

two weeks' retreat wliicli culminated in the battle 
of the Marne showed Joffre to be a strategist of 
the very highest order. And any man who could 
direct the retreat of an army, especially a French 
army, for two weeks and so preserve that army's 
morale that he could then turn it around to vic- 
tory, must have great qualities of genius. 

Ever since, Joffre has given ample evidence of 
his quality as a master in the art of war, but he 
has forsaken the code of war known as the Napo- 
leonic strategy which was in brief: ''Go where 
your enemy does not expect you to go," Joffre 
knows perfectly well that in modern war, over 
such a vast front, such tactics are impossible ; he 
knows that ninety-nine times out of one hundred 
your enemy, through his aeroplanes and spies, 
will know where you are going. 

Joffre indicated his idea of modern strategy 
some months after the war began when he said, 
' ' I am nibbling at them. ' ' The nibbles have grad- 
ually become mouthfuls. 

Joffre thinks all war is too useless for unneces- 
sary sacrifice of men. He saves them all he can. 
That is why he would not send reenforcements 
when the Germans attacked in front of Soissons, 
in the presence of the Kaiser. The Germans 
were vastly superior in numbers at that point. 



JOFFRE 169 

The weather was frightful. Joffre figured that 
the French losses would be too heavy in a gen- 
eral battle there. He knew too that the swollen 
river Aisne would quite as effectively prevent a 
German advance. And it did. Joffre did not 
send reenforcements to Soissons in face of both 
appeals and public opinion. 

Nothing moves him, when he is convinced that 
he is right. And a general of a combination of 
armies who doggedly does what he wants to do, 
whatever any one else thinks about it — ^who dis- 
misses all opposition with a very quiet wave of 
the hand, ag Joffre does, undoubtedly possesses 
an overpowering personality. 

Joffre is the last man on earth to hold his 
enemy lightly. No man knows better than he how 
strong the Germans are. But he will keep up 
that steady hammering, first at this point — then 
at that point — then simultaneously all along the 
line, pressing them back one mile here and two 
miles there, until the German army is beaten and 
out of France. That is what has been going on 
now, although a large scale map is necessary to 
note just how steadily and how gradually the Ger- 
mans have been pressed back everywhere by the 
advancing French wall of steel. 

Let us go back a moment to that sunny August 



170 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

dawn of the beginning of the war. I said to my 
friend as we stood looking at the tomb of Napo- 
leon Bonaparte: "I wonder what that man would 
do if he could come out of that block of granite 
and command this army?" 

My friend replied : 

''I think he would shut himself up in a room 
and read all night the history of all wars from his 
day to now. Then in the morning he would call 
in a few generals and hear them talk. After that 
he would take lunch with some manufacturers of 
arms and ammunition. He would take tea with 
some boss mathematicians and scientists. He 
might then go for a walk alone. By dinner, I 
believe he would be on to the job of modern 
military strategy and ready for work." 

Whether General Joseph Joffre is the reincar- 
nation of Napoleon Bonaparte, I am unable to 
even discuss. He is the perfect antithesis of the 
little Corsican in many ways, and he has tackled 
a bigger job than Bonaparte ever dreamed of. 
But the heart of a nation never beat more hope- 
fully than that of the new and united France. 

''When the war is over — and if Joifre is the 
conqueror — ^what will he do then?" — is another 
question asked nowadays. I have heard it re- 
marked that private life with comparative obliv- 



JOFFRE 171 

ion may not be easy for tlie great miKtary hero 
who now has both a Belgian king and a British 
field marshal taking his orders. 

And I have already heard comment on what a 
great show Paris will have when the war is over 
— how the Grand Army of France headed by 
Father Joffre will march under the Arch of Tri- 
umph and down the Champs-Elysees — ^while the 
applauding world looks on. 

Perhaps so. I do not know. I have already 
said that two things Joffre loves best in all the 
world, next to his family, are peace and fishing. 
I have a private suspicion that once peace is 
declared, Father Joffre may turn his back upon 
Paris and go fishing. 



CHAPTER. XIV 

THE MAN OF THE MARNE AND THE YSBR 

It was a drippy day — a day when winter over- 
coats were uncomfortable but necessary to protect 
against a wind that swept over the plateau of 
Artois. A party of newspapermen were begin- 
ing a war-corresponding de luxe program 
arranged by the French war office. The Paris- 
Boulogne express had been commanded to stop 
at Amiens, where limousines were waiting in 
charge of an officer of the Great General Staff. 

I knew Amiens of old. As an ambulance driver 
at the beginning of the war, when the unpopularity 
of correspondents reached the maS^imum, I had 
brought wounded to the Amiens hospitals. So I 
knew the roads in all directions. 

I pushed the raindrops from the automobile 
window. We were not going in the direction of 
the battle lines but parallel with them, and then 
bending into a road toward the rear. I com- 
municated this intelligence to my companions. 
One of them, an old-timer, yawned and said : 

172 



MAN OF THE MARNE AND YSER 173 

''Oil, it is usually this way on tlie first day of 
a trip. We are probably on the way to visit some 
general. It takes a lot of time but we must act 
as though we liked it. ' ' 

''But if the general is a Somebody, it will be 
worth while, especially if we can interview," sug- 
gested another. 

"We cannot," the old-timer said composedly, 
"and he probably will not be a Somebody. This 
is a long battle line. They have a lot of gen- 
erals. We are probably calling on only a gen- 
eral of brigade. It is possible that we will not 
remember his name. He will tell us that we are 
welcome. It is a drawback of modern war cor- 
responding, especially if he invites us to dinner." 

"Why, what would be the matter with that?" 

"The dinner will be excellent," was the answer. 
"The dinner of a general begins with hors 
d'oeuvres and ends with cordials — ^two or three 
different brands. There will be speeches and 
there will be no visit to the trenches — there will be 
no time." 

There was no response and our car sloshed 
along in the rain. 

We stopped before a little red brick cottage set 
back from the road in the midst of a grove of 
pines. A gravel walk led to the steps of a small 



174 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

square veranda where a sentry stood at salute. 
We were in the country. No other houses were 
near. 

A young lieutenant ran down the walk and 
greeted us. 

*'I don't know how you will be received inside," 
was his strange utterance. "He said he wanted 
to see you. That is why we sent word to Amiens. 
But it doesn't matter whether you are journalists 
or generals. He treats all comers the same — 
that is, just according to how he feels. He will 
either talk to you or he will expect you to do all 
the talking. I just wanted to tell you in advance 
to expect anything." 

I climbed out of the car, wondering. I followed 
the young lieutenant into the building. I stood 
with the others in a little reception hall where an 
orderly took our hats and coats. Facing us was a 
door. On it was pinned a white page torn from an 
ordinary writing pad. Scrawled in ink, were the 
words, "Bureau du General.'' 

The party was curiously silent. I felt that this 
visit to a general would be different from any- 
thing I had experienced before. We all became a 
little restless and nervous. I turned toward a 
table near the wall. On it was a French transla- 
tion of Kipling's ''Jungle Book." I picked it 




GENERAL FOCH 
"The Man of the Marne and the Yser' 



MAN OF THE MARNE AND YSER 175 

up thinking how curious it was to find such a book 
at the headquarters of a general. I gasped with 
surprise as I saw the name of the general writ- 
ten on the first page. 

A buzzer sounded and an orderly bounded in 
from the veranda, threw open the door marked 
with the white writing page, turned to us, saying, 
"Entrez, Messieurs." 

We entered a large room with many windows, 
all hung with dainty white lace. Despite the 
gloomy day the room seemed sunny, for there were 
at least a dozen vases filled with yellow flowers. 
Between two dormer windows opening upon a 
garden was stretched a great yellow map, dotted 
with lines and stuck all over with tiny tri-colored 
flags. Before this map and studying it closely, 
with his back half turned toward us, stood a little 
man. A thick stump of unlighted cigar was 
between his teeth. His shoulders were thrown 
back, his hands clutched tightly behind him. He 
wore the full uniform of a general, with long cav- 
alry boots and spurs. At the sound of, our 
entrance, he swung about dramatically, on one 
heel. We caught sight of the Grand Cross of the 
Legion of Honor blazing on his breast. He wore 
no other decorations, and I noted the absence of a 
sword. The light fell full upon his handsome, but 



176 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

ravaged and aging face. The memory of all that I 
had heard about him raced across my mind in the 
short time before I felt him seize my hand, saw 
his blue eyes boring into mine, heard him asking 
questions and stating facts directly to me. For 
this was the man who sent the famous message to 
General Joffre at the critical moment of the bat- 
tle of the Marne, that inasmuch as his left was 
crushed and his right thrown back, he proposed to 
attack with his center. This was the man who 
later stemmed the G-erman tide at the Yser, and 
saved Calais and the Channel ports. This was 
the man who has ever since commanded the Group 
of Armies of the North, Belgian, English and 
French, driving the enemy inch by inch through 
the Labyrinth and out of Artois. This man, the 
dashing beau ideal of the French army, the great 
strategist of the Ecole de Guerre, the nearest of 
all Frenchmen to approach the ''man on horse- 
back" picture of the military hero, this man who 
was talking to me, and frankly telling me of 
important things was General Foch. 

I found myself answering his questions 
mechanically. I told him the name of the paper 
that I represented, also that this was my third 
visit to the battle front in Artois. 

*'Ali, yes, I know your paper," he said. "I 



MAN OF THE MARNE AND YSER 177 

read it. It has been one of the great forums for 
the discussion of the war. You have printed both 
sides of the question." 

"But we are in favor of the Allies!" I inter- 
rupted. 

"I know that also — that is why you have come 
a third time to Artois." 

The next correspondent in the line was a Span- 
iard. Foch eyed him for a moment. "I know 
you," he said. "I met you in Madrid six years 
ago." The correspondent bowed with amaze- 
ment at the general's memory. He passed along 
the line, shaking hands. He stopped before a tall 
Dutchman, the representative of a paper in 
Amsterdam. 

"Ho! Ho! — the big representative of a little 
nation." The Dutchman was poked in the ribs 
with the genial index finger of the General's right 
hand. "Don't you know that if Germany wins, 
your country will be swallowed up? You have 
developed a great commerce and valuable indus- 
tries. Germany will never be your friend. As 
of old, the big fish will eat the little one." Then 
he swung back down the line, in my direction. 

"You have already been twice on my battle 
front. You have seen a great difference between 
the first and second trips. You will see another 



178 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

great change now. Perhaps you will come here 
still again — for the last great offensive, — in 
Artois. ' ' 

''What do you mean, mon general?" I asked. 

The little man was silent for a moment, chewing 
the end of his cigar and looking steadily, first at 
one and then at another of us. I shall never for- 
get his words. They revealed the cardinal neces- 
sity for waging modern war. 

*'We have shown," he said slowly, ''that we 
can go through them any time we like. The great 
need is shells. The consumption of shells during 
the last offensive was fantastic. But still we did 
not shoot enough." He stopped, then said still 
more slowly: "The next time we will shoot 
enough. ' ' 

"And then, mon general?" asked the Spaniard. 
"And then?" 

"And then," Foch replied, "and then we shall 
keep on advancing, and the Germans will have to 
go away." 

He again swung dramatically on his heel, until 
his back was turned to us. ^'Au revoir, Mes- 
sieurs," he said, and as we filed silently and some- 
what dazedly from the room, he was again stand- 
ing before the huge map, chewing the cigar, his 



MAN OF THE MARNE AND YSER 179 

shoulders thrust back, and his hands clasped 
tightly behind him. 

The young lieutenant climbed into our car. 
He explained that the general had delegated him 
to the party. He went with us through the 
trenches on succeeding days and said good-by 
only when we took the train for Paris. He was 
a brilliant young officer and before the war had 
been a foreign correspondent for Le Temps. For 
that great newspaper he had ''covered" cam- 
paigns in Asia and Africa. Now he explained 
that he was to be official historian of the cam- 
paigns of General Foch. 

"I am the latest comer on his staff," the lieu- 
tenant said, "so there was not much room for me 
and he has given me a holiday with you. He has 
not a large staff, but the house as you see is very 
little. So I have the room that a baby occupied 
before the war." The young man smiled and 
looked down at his stalwart frame. "There was 
only a little cot and a rocking horse in the room. 
I sleep on the floor. I shall keep the cot for the 
baby. ' ^ 

This conversation took place on the last day of 
our trip, amidst the ruins of Arras. The lieu- 
tenant talked continually of his general. He 



i8o PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

explained how the general had told him in detail, 
and illustrated by making a plan with matches, 
the great movement of troops during the battle of 
the Marne that started the German retreat. 

''The general broke all his own rules of war," 
he explained; ''all those rules that he taught so 
long in the Ecole de Guerre. He moved an entire 
division — half of the famous Forty-second Corps, 
while it was under fire — he stretched out the 
remainder of the corps in a thin line across its 
place, and moved the division behind his entire 
army, then flung them against the Prussian Guard 
as it was beginning the attack on the center. The 
moving of troops already engaged with the enemy 
had never been done in any war before." 

"But he staked his whole reputation — ^his mili- 
tary career on it?" I asked. 

The Lieutenant smiled. "Oh, yes," he replied, 
"but after he gave the order, he went for a long 
walk in the country with a member of his staff, 
who told me afterwards that not once was the 
war mentioned, and they were gone three hours. 
All that time they talked about Spanish art and 
Spanish music. When they returned to head- 
quarters, the general merely asked if there was 
any news, knowing well that perhaps he might 
hear news which would make his name hated for- 



MAN OF THE MARNE AND YSER i8i 

ever. He was told the tide had turned and we 
were winning the battle. He merely grunted and 
lighted a fresh cigar. ' ' 

We all remained silent and then a number of 
desultory questions were asked about the position 
of the troops. The lieutenant again explained 
with matches. "The general showed it to me 
with matches, as I have already shown." He 
spoke reverently, his voice almost a whisper. 
"And I have those matches that the general 
used." 

In Arras there was just one house left where 
we could take luncheon — a fine old mansion be- 
longing to a friend of our guide from the Great 
General Staff. We brought our food and sol- 
diers served it in a stately room with a massive 
beamed ceiling and stags' antlers decorating the 
walls. A tapestry concealed one wall. The of- 
ficer pulled it aside to show that we sat in only 
half a room; the other half had been entirely de- 
stroyed by shells. From the cellar an orderly 
brought some of the finest burgundy in France. 
There was a piano in one corner of the room. 
When coffee was served, our Captain sat at the 
instrument and played snatches of Schubert, Mo- 
zart and Beethoven. 

The discussion at the table turned to music. 



i82 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

At the same moment a shell burst a few hundred 
yards down the street. 

*'Play Wagner," some one asked. 

A member of our party who had been in Eussia 
said: 

*'Do you permit German music? In Eussia it 
is forbidden." 

The officer replied: 

**How stupid! Things which are beautiful re- 
main beautiful," and he played an air from 
"Tristan" as a shell went screaming overhead. 

The young lieutenant, handsome and debonair, 
turned to me: 

**This is fine," he said. ''Here we are in the 
last house in Arras where this scene is possible, 
and perhaps to-morrow this place will all be gone 
— perhaps in ten minutes." He laughed and the 
piano was silenced by the explosion of another 
shell. 

We climbed into our automobiles and hurried 
out of town along a road in plain sight of the 
German guns. I thought of what General Foch 
had said: "We can go through them any time 
we desire." I got out my military map and 
looked at the German line, slipping gradually 
from the plateau of Artois into the plain of 
Douai — ^the plain that contains Lens, Douai and 



MAN OF THE MARNE AND YSER 183 

Lille and sweeps away across the frontier of Bel- 
gium. That was the place to which General Foch 
referred when he said the Germans ''must keep 
on going away." I turned to an officer beside me 
in the car. I said : ' ' When the French guns are 
sweeping that plain it means the end of the Ger- 
mans in Northern France!" He smiled and 
nodded, while I offered a silent prayer that on 
that day I might be permitted by the military 
authorities to make my fourth visit to Artois, to 
see the decisive victory of French arms that I 
believe will take place there under the command 
of General Foch, and that will help largely to 
bring this war to a close. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH 

This is a story about what, in the minds of the 
French military authorities, ranks as the greatest 
battle in the western theater of operations, fol- 
lowing the battle of the Marne. 

So far as I know the battle has never received 
an official name. The French communiques have 
always vaguely referred to it as "operations in 
the sector north of Arras. ' ' 

I cannot minutely describe the conflict; no one 
can do that now. I can, however, tell what I saw 
there when the Ministry of War authorized me 
to accompany a special mission there, to which 
I was the only foreigner accredited. I purpose 
to call this struggle the Battle of the Labyrinth, 
for ''labyrinth" is the name applied to the vast 
system of entrenchments all through that region, 
and from which the Germans have been literally 
blasted almost foot by foot by an extravagant use 
of French melinite. This battle was of vital im- 
portance because a French defeat at the Laby- 
rinth would allow the Germans to sweep clear 

184 



THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH 185 

across Northern France, cutting off all communi- 
cation with England. 

The battle of the Labyrinth really began in 
October, 1914, when General de Maud'huy 
stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras with 
his motley array of tired territorials, whom he 
had gathered together in a mighty rush north- 
ward after the battle of the Marne. These crack 
Guards regiments afterward took on the job at 
Ypres, while the Crown Prince of Bavaria 
assumed the vain task of attempting to break de 
Maud'huy's resistance and cut a more southward 
passage to the sea. 

All winter de Maud'huy worried him, not 
seeking to make a big advance, but contenting him- 
self with the record of never having lost a single 
trench. With the return of warm weather, just 
after the big French advance in Champagne, this 
sector was chosen by Joffre as the place in which 
to take the heart out of his enemy by the delivery 
of a mighty blow. 

The Germans probably thought that the French 
intended to concentrate in the Vosges, as next 
door to Champagne; so they carted all their 
poison gases there and to Ypres, where their ambi- 
tion still maintains ascendency over their good 
sense. But where the Germans think Joffre is 



i86 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

likely to strike is usually the place furthest from 
his thoughts. Activities in the Arras sector were 
begun under the personal command and direction 
of the Commander-in-Chief. 

I doubt whether until the war is over it will be 
possible adequately to describe the battle, or 
rather, the series of battles extending along this 
particular front of about fifty miles. "Laby- 
rinth" certainly is the fittest word to call it. I 
always had a fairly accurate sense of direction; 
but, it was impossible for me, standing in many 
places in this giant battlefield, to say where were 
the Grermans and where the French, so confusing 
was the constant zigzag of the trenches. Some- 
times when I was positive that a furious cannonade 
coming from a certain position was German, it 
turned out to be French. At other times, when I 
thought I was safely going in the direction of the 
French, I was hauled back by officers who told me 
I was heading directly into the German line of 
fire. I sometimes felt that the German lines were 
on three sides, and often I was quite correct. On 
the other hand, the French lines often almost com- 
pletely surround the German positions. 

One could not tell from the nearness of the 
artillery fire whether it was from friend or foe. 
Artillery makes three different noises; first, the 



THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH 187 

sharp report followed by detonations like thunder, 
when the shell first leaves the gun; second, the 
rushing sound of the shell passing high overhead ; 
third, the shrill whistle, followed by the crash when 
it finally explodes. In the Labyrinth the detona- 
tions which usually indicated the French fire might 
be from the German batteries stationed close by 
but unable to get our range, and firing at a section 
of the French lines some miles away. I finally 
determined that when a battery fired fast it was 
French; for the German fire became more inter- 
mittent every day. 

I shall try to give some idea of what this fight- 
ing looks like. Late one afternoon, coming out 
of a trench into a green meadow, I suddenly found 
myself backed against a mud-bank made of the 
dirt taken from the trenches. We were just at 
the crest of a hill. In khaki clothes I was of the 
same color as the mud-bank; so an officer told me 
I was in a fairly safe position. 

Modern war becomes a somewhat flat affair 
after the first impressions have been dulled. 

We blotted ourselves against our mud-bank, care- 
fully adjusted our glasses, turned them toward 
the valley before us, whence came the sound of 
exploding shells, and watched a village dying in 
the sunset. It was only about a thousand yards 



i88 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

away — I didn't even ask whether it was in French 
or German possession. A loud explosion, a roll 
of dense black smoke, penetrated at once by the 
long, horizontal rays of sun, revealing tumbling 
roofs and crumbling walls. A few seconds ' inter- 
mission; then another explosion; a public school 
in the main street sagged suddenly in the center. 
With no pause came a succession of explosions, 
and the building was prone upon the ground — a 
jagged pile of broken stones. 

We turned our glasses on the other end of the 
village. A column of black smoke was rising 
where the church had caught fire. We watched it 
awhile in silence. Euins were getting very com- 
mon. I swept the glasses away from the hamlet 
altogether and pointed out over the distant fields 
to the left. 

"Where are the German trenches?" I asked the 
Major. 

" I '11 show you — just a moment ! " he answered, 
and at the same time signaling to a soldier 
squatting in the entrance to a trench near by, he 
ordered the man to convey a message to the tele- 
phone station, which connected with a ''seventy- 
five" battery at our rear. I was on the point of 
telling the officer not to bother about it. The 
words were on my lips ; then I thought : ' ' Oh, never 



THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH 189 

mind! I might as well know where the trenches 
are, now that I have asked." 

The soldier disappeared. ''Watch!" said the 
officer. We peered intently across the fields to the 
left. In less than a minute there were two sharp 
explosions behind us, two puffs of smoke out on 
the horizon before us, about a mile away. 

''That's where they are!" the officer said. 
"Both shells went right into them!" 

Away to the right of the village, now reduced 
to ruins, was another larger village; we squared 
around on our mud bank to look at that. This 
town was more important; it was Neuville-Saint- 
Vaast, which was occupied by both French and 
Germans, the former slowly retaking it, house by 
house. We were about half a mile away. We 
could see little ; for strangely, in this business of 
house-to-house occupation, most of the fighting is 
in the cellars. But I could well imagine what was 
going on, for I had already walked through the 
ruins of Vermelles, another town now entirely in 
French possession, but taken in the same fashion 
after two months' dogged inch-by-inch advances. 

So, when, looking at Neuville-Saint-Vaast, I 
suddenly heard a tremendous explosion and saw 
a great mass of masonry and debris of all descrip- 
tions flying high in the air, I knew just what had 



igo PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

happened. The French — for it is always the 
French who do it — had burrowed, sapped and dug 
themselves laboriously, patiently, slowly, by tortu- 
ous, narrow underground routes from one row of 
houses under the foundations of the next row of 
houses. There they had planted mines. The 
explosion I had just witnessed was of a mine. 
Much of the debris I saw flying through space had 
been German soldiers a few seconds before. 

Before the smoke died away we heard a savage 
yell. That was the French cry of victory; then 
we heard a rapid cracking of rifles. The French 
had evidently advanced across the space between 
the houses to finish the work of their mine. When 
one goes to view the work of these mines afterward 
all that one sees is a great round, smooth hole in 
the ground — sometimes 30 feet deep, often twice 
that in diameter. Above it might have been 
either a chateau or a stable ; unless one has an old 
resident for guide it is impossible to know. 

It takes manj^ days and nights to prepare these 
mines. It takes correct mathematical calcula- 
tion to place them. It takes morale, judgment, 
courage, and intelligence — this fighting from house 
to house. And yet the French are called a frivo- 
lous people! 

A cry from a soldier warned us of a German 



THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH igi 

aeroplane directly overhead ; so we stopped gazing 
at Neuville-Saint-Vaast. A French aeroplane 
soon appeared, and the German one made off 
rapidly. They usually do, as most German war 
planes are too light to carry anything but rifles 
and bombs; French machines, while slower, all 
have mitrailleuses. A fight between them is 
unequal, and the inequality is not easily over- 
come. 

Four French machines were now circling above, 
and the German batteries opened fire on them. It 
was a beautiful sight. There was not a cloud in 
the sky, and the sun had not yet gone. We could 
not hear the shells explode, but little feathery 
white clouds suddenly appeared as if some giant 
invisible hand had just put them there — high up 
in the sky. Another appeared; then another. 
Several dozen little white clouds were vividly out- 
lined against the blue before the French machines, 
all untouched, turned back to their own lines. 

The soldier with us suddenly threw himself face 
down on the ground; a second after a German 
shell tore a hole in the field before us, less than 
a hundred yards away. I asked the officer if we 
had been seen, and if they were firing at us. He 
said he did not think so, but we had perhaps 
better move. As a matter of fact, they were hunt- 



192 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

ing the battery that had so accurately shown us 
their trenches a short time before. 

Instead of returning to the point where we had 
left our motors by the trench, we walked across 
an open field in a direction which I thought was 
precisely the wrong one. High above us, con- 
tinually, was a rushing sound like giant wings. 
Occasionally, when a shell struck near us, we heard 
the shrill whistling sound, and half a dozen times 
in the course of the walk great holes were torn in 
our field. But artillery does not cause fear 
easily; it is rifles that accomplish that. The sharp 
hissing of the bullet resembles so much the sound 
of a spitting cat, seems so personal — as if it was 
intended just for you. 

Artillery is entirely impersonal ; you know that 
the gunners do not see you; that they are firing 
by arithmetic at a certain range; that their shell 
is not intended for any one in particular. So you 
walk on, among daisies and buttercups. You 
calculate the distance between you and the burst- 
ing shell. You somehow feel that nothing will 
harm you. You are not afraid; and if you are 
lucky, as we were, you will find the automobiles 
waiting for you just over there beyond the brow 
of the hill. 



CHAPTER XVI 

"with the honoes of war'* 

It was just dawn when I got off a train at 
Gerbeviller, the little "Martyr City" that hides 
its desolation as it hid its existence in the foothills 
of the Vosges. 

There was a dense fog. At 6 a. m. fog usually 
covers the valleys of the Meurthe and Moselle. 
From the station I could see only a building across 
the road. A gendarme demanded my credentials. 
I handed him the laisser-passer from the Quartier 
General of the "First French Army," which con- 
trols all coming and going, all activity in that 
region. The gendarme demanded to know the 
hour when I proposed to leave. I told him. He 
said it would be necessary to have the permit 
"vised for departure" at the headquarters of the 
gendarmerie. He pointed to the hazy outlines of 
another building just distinguishable through the 
fog. 

This was proof that the town contained build- 
ings — ^not just a building. The place was not 

193 



194 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

entirely destroyed, as I had supposed. I went 
down tile main street from the station, the fog 
enveloping me. I had letters to the town officials, 
but it was too early in the morning to present 
them. I would first get my own impressions of 
the wreck and ruin. 

But I could see nothing on either hand as I 
stumbled along in the mud. So I commented to 
myself that this was not as bad as some places 
I had seen. I thought of the substantial station 
and the buildings across the road — untouched by 
war. I compared Gerbeviller with places where 
there is not even a station — where not even one 
house remains as the result of "the day when the 
Germans came." 

The road was winding and steep, dipping down 
to the swift little stream that twists a turbulent 
passage through the town. The day was coming 
fast but the fog remained white and impenetrable. 
After a few minutes I began to see dark shapes on 
either side of the road. Tall, thin, irregular 
shapes, some high, some low, but with outlines all 
softened, toned down by the banks of white 
vapor. 

I started across the road to investigate and fell 
across a pile of jagged masonry on the sidewalk. 
Through the fog I could see tumbled piles of 



"WITH THE HONORS OF WAR" 195 

bricks. The shapes still remained — specters that 
seemed to move in the light from the valley. An 
odor that was not of the freshness of the morning 
assailed me. I climbed across the walk. No wall 
of buildings barred my path, but I mounted higher 
on the piles of brick and stones. A heavy black 
shape was now at my left hand. I looked up and 
in the shadow there was no fog. I could see a 
crumbled swaying side of a house that was. The 
odor I noticed was that caused by fire. Sticking 
from the wall I could see the charred wood joists 
that once supported the floor of the second story. 
Higher, the lifting fog permitted me to see the 
waving boughs of a tree that hung over the house 
that was. At my feet, sticking out of a pile of 
bricks and stones, were the twisted iron fragments 
of a child's bed. I climbed out into the sunshine. 

I was standing in the midst of a desolation and 
a silence that were profound. There was nothing 
there that lived, except a few fire-blacked trees 
that stuck up here and there in the shelter of 
broken walls. Now I understood the meaning of 
the spectral shapes. They were nothing but the 
broken walls of the other houses that were. They 
were all that remained of nine-tenths of Gerbe- 
viller. 

I wandered along to where the street turned 



196 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

sharply. There the ground pitched straight to 
the little river. Half of a house stood there, 
unscathed by fire; it was one of those unexplain- 
able freaks that often occur in great catastrophes. 
Even the window glass was intact. Smoke was 
coming from the chimney. I went to the opposite 
side and there stood an old woman looking out 
toward the river, brooding over the ruin stretching 
below her. 

''You are lucky," I said. ''You still have your 
home. ' ' 

She turned a toothless countenance toward me 
and threw out her hands. I judged her to be well 
over seventy. It wasn't her home, she explained. 
Her home was "la-bas" — pointing vaguely in the 
distance. She had lived there fifty years — now it 
was burned. Her son's house, he had saved thirty 
years to be able to call it his own, was also gone ; 
but then her son was dead, so what did it matter 1 
Yes, he was shot on the day the Germans came. 
He was ill, but they killed him. Oh, yes, she saw 
him killed. When the Germans went away she 
came to his house and built a fire in the stove. It 
was very cold. 

And why were the houses burned 1 No ; it was 
not the result of bombardment. Gerbeviller was 
not bombarded until after the houses were burned. 



"WITH THE HONORS OF WAR" 197 

They were burned by the Germans systemati- 
cally. They went from house to house with their 
torches and oil and pitch. They did not explain 
why they burned the houses, but it was because 
they were angry. 

The old woman paused a moment, and a faint 
flicker of a smile showed in the wrinkles about 
her eyes. I asked her to continue her story. 

''You said because they were angry," I 
prompted. The smile broadened. Oh, yes, they 
were angry, she explained. They did not even 
make the excuse that the villagers fired upon them. 
They were just angry through and through. And 
it was all because of those seventy-five French 
chasseurs who held the bridge. 

Some one called to her from the house. She 
hobbled to the door. ' ' Any one can tell you about 
the seventy-five chasseurs," she said, disappear- 
ing within. 

I went on down the road and stood upon the 
bridge over the swift little river. It was a nar- 
row, tiny bridge only wide enough for one wagon 
to pass. Two roads from the town converged 
there, the one over which I had passed and an- 
other which formed a letter "V" at the junction 
with the bridge. Across the river only one road 
led away from the bridge and it ran straight up 



igS PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

a hill, when it turned suddenly into the broad 
national highway to Luneville, about five miles 
away. 

One house remained standing at the end of the 
bridge, nearest the town. Its roof was gone, and 
its walls bore the marks of hundreds of bullets, but 
it was inhabited by a little old man of fifty, who 
came out to talk with me. He was the village 
carpenter. His house was burned, so he had taken 
refuge in the little house at the bridge. During 
the time the Germans were there he had been a 
prisoner, but they forgot him the morning the 
French army arrived. Everybody was in such a 
hurry, he explained. 

I asked him about the seventy-five chasseurs at 
the bridge. 

Ah, yes, we were then standing on the site of 
their barricade. He would tell me about it, for 
he had seen it all from his house half way up the 
hill. 

The chasseurs were first posted across the river 
on the road to Luneville, and when the Germans 
approached, early in the morning, they fell back 
to the bridge, which they had barricaded the night 
before. It was the only way into Gerbeviller, so 
the chasseurs determined to fight. They had torn 
up the street and thrown great earthworks across 



" WITH THE HONORS OF WAR " 199 

one end of the bridge. Additional barricades 
were thrown up on the two converging streets, 
part way up the hill, behind which they had mi- 
trailleuses which could sweep the road at the other 
end of the bridge. 

About a half mile to the south a narrow foot- 
bridge crossed the river, only wide enough for one 
man. It was a little rustic affair that ran through 
the grounds of the Chateau de Gerbeviller, which 
faced the river only a few hundred yards below 
the main bridge. It was a very ancient chateau, 
built in the twelfth century and restored in the 
seventeenth century. It was a royal chateau of 
the Bourbons. In it once lived the great Frangois 
de Montmorency, Due de Luxembourg and Mar- 
shal of France. Now it belonged to the Marquise 
de Lamberty, a cousin of the King of Spain. 

I interrupted, for I wanted to hear about the 
chasseurs. I gave the little old man a cigarette. 
He seized it eagerly — so eagerly that I also handed 
him a cigar. He fondled that cigar for a moment 
and then placed it in an inside pocket. It was a 
very cheap and very bad French cigar, for I was 
in a part of the country that has never heard of 
Havanas, but to the little old man it was some- 
thing precious. '*I will keep it for Sunday," he 
said. 



200 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

I then got him back to the seventy-five chasseurs. 
It was just eight o 'clock in the morning — a beauti- 
ful sunshiny morning — when the German column 
appeared around the bend in the road which we 
could see across the bridge, and which joined the 
highway from Luneville. There were twelve 
thousand in that first column. One hundred and 
fifty thousand more came later. A band was 
playing "Deutschland fiber AUes," and the men 
were singing. The closely-packed front ranks of 
infantry broke into the goose step as they came in 
sight of the town. It was a wonderful sight ; the 
sun glistened on their helmets; they marched as 
though on parade right down almost to the oppo- 
site end of the bridge. 

Then came the command to halt. For a moment 
there was a complete silence. The Grermans, only 
a couple of hundred yards from the barricade, 
seemed slowly to consider the situation. The 
Captain of the chasseurs, from a shelter behind 
the very little house that was still standing — and 
where his men up the two roads could see him — 
softly waved his hand. 

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack- 
crack! The bullets from the mitrailleuses whis- 
tled across the bridge into the front ranks of the 



" WITH THE HONORS OF WAR " 201 

"Deutsehland liber AUes" singers, while the men 
behind the bridge barricade began a deadly rifle 
fire. 

Have yon ever heard a mitrailleuse *? It is just 
like a telegraph instrument, with its insistent 
clickety click-click-click, only it is a hundred times 
as loud. Indeed I have been told by French 
officers that it has sometimes been used as a tele- 
graph instrument, so accurately can its operator 
reel out its hundred and sixty shots a minute. 

On that morning at the Gerbeviller barricade, 
however, it went faster than the telegraph. These 
men on the converging roads just shifted their 
range shghtly and poured bullets into the next 
ranks of infantry and so on back along the line, 
until Germans were dropping by the dozen at the 
sides of the straight little road. Then the column 
broke ranks wildly and fled back into the shelter 
of the road from Luneville. 

A half hour later a detachment of cavalry 
suddenly rounded the corner and charged straight 
for the barricade. The seventy-five were ready 
for them. Some of them got half way across the 
bridge and then tumbled into the river. Not one 
got back around the corner of the road to Lune- 
ville. 



202 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

There was another half hour of quiet, and then 
from the Luneville road a battery of artillery got 
into action. Their range was bad, so far as any 
achievement against the seventy-five was con- 
cerned, so they turned their attention to the 
chateau, which they could easily see from their 
position across the river. The first shell struck 
the majestic tower of the building and shattered 
it. The next smashed the roof, the third hit the 
chapel — and so continued the bombardment until 
flames broke out to complete the destruction. 

Of course the Germans could not know that the 
chateau was empty, that its owner was in Paris 
and both her sons fighting in the French army. 
But they had secured the military advantage of 
demolishing one of the finest country houses in 
France, with its priceless tapestries, ancient 
marbles and heirlooms of the Bourbons. A howl 
of German glee was heard by the seventy-five 
chasseurs crouching behind their barricades. So 
pleased were the invaders with their achievement 
that next they bravely swung out a battery into 
the road leading to the bridge, intending to shell 
the barricades. The Captain of chasseurs again 
waved his hand. Every man of the battery was 
killed before the guns were in position. It took 
an entire company of infantry — half of them being 



" WITH THE HONORS OF WAR " 203 

killed in the action — to haul those guns back into 
the Luneville road, thus to clear the way for 
another advance. 

From then on until 1 o'clock in the afternoon 
there were more infantry attacks, all failing as 
lamentably as the first. The seventy-five were 
holding off the 12,000. At the last attack they 
let the G-ermans advance to the entrance of the 
bridge. They invited them with taunts to ad- 
vance. Then they poured in their deadly fire, and 
as the Germans broke and fled they permitted 
themselves a cheer. Up to this time not one 
chasseur was killed. Only four were wounded. 

Shortly after 1 o'clock the German artillery 
wasted a few more shells on the ruined chateau 
and the chasseurs could see a detachment crawling 
along the river bank in the direction of the narrow 
footbridge that crossed through the chateau park 
a half mile below. The Captain of the chasseurs 
sent one man with a mitrailleuse to hold the 
bridge. He posted himself in the shelter of a 
large tree at one end. In a few minutes about 
fifty Germans appeared. They advanced cau- 
tiously on the bridge. The chasseur let them get 
half way over before he raked them with his fire. 
The water below ran red with blood. 

The Germans retreated for help and made 



204 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

another attack an hour later with the same result. 
By 4 o'clock, when the lone chasseur's ammunition 
was exhausted, it is estimated that he had killed 
175 Germans, who made five desperate rushes to 
take the position, which would have enabled them 
to make a flank attack on the seventy-four still 
holding the main bridge. When his ammunition 
was gone — which occurred at the same time as the 
ammunition at the main bridge was exhausted — 
this chasseur with the others succeeded in eif ecting 
a retreat to a main body of cavalry. If he still 
lives — this modern Horatius at the bridge- 
he remains an unnamed hero in the ranks of the 
French army, unhonored except in the hearts of 
those few of his countrymen who know. 

During the late hours of the afternoon aero- 
planes flew over the chasseurs' position, thus dis- 
covering to the Germans how really weak were 
the defenses of the town, how few its defenders. 
Besides the ammunition was gone. But for eight 
hours — from eight in the morning until four in 
the afternoon — the seventy-five had held the 
12,000. 

Had that body of 12,000 succeeded earlier the 
150,000 Germans that advanced the next day might 
have been able to fall on the French right flank 
during a critical battle of the war. The total 



" WITH THE HONORS OF WAR " 205 

casualties of the chasseurs were three killed, three 
captured, and six wounded. 

The little old man and I had walked to the en- 
trance of the chateau park before he finished his 
story. It was still too early for breakfast. I 
thanked him and told him to return to his work in 
the little house by the bridge. I wanted to ex- 
plore the chateau at leisure. 

I entered the place — what was left of it. Most 
of the walls were standing. Walls built in the 
twelfth century do not break easily, even with 
modern artillery. But the modern roof and seven- 
teenth century inner walls were all demolished. 
Not a single article of furniture or decoration 
remained. But the destruction showed some of 
the same freaks — similar to that little house left 
untouched by fire on the summit of the hill. 

For instance, the Bourbon coat of arms above 
the grand staircase was untouched, while the stair- 
case itself was just splintered bits of marble. On 
another fragment of the wall there still hung a 
magnificent stag's antlers. Strewed about in the 
corners I saw fragments of vases that had been 
priceless. Even the remnants were valuable. In 
the ruined music room I found a piece of fresh, 
clean music (an Alsatian waltz), lying on the 
mantelpiece. I went out to the front of the build- 



2o6 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

ing, where the great park sweeps down to the 
edge of the river. An old gardener in one of the 
side paths saw me. We immediately established 
cordial relations with a cigarette. 

He told me how, after the chasseurs retreated 
beyond the town, the Germans — reduced over a 
thousand of their original number by the activities 
of the day — swept over the barricades of the 
bridge and into the town. Yes, the old woman I 
had talked with was right about it. They were 
very angry. They were ferociously angry at 
being held eight hours at that bridge by a force so 
ridiculously small. 

The first civilians they met they killed, and then 
they began to fire the houses. One young man, 
half-witted, came out of one of the houses near 
the bridge. They hanged him in the garden 
behind the house. Then they called his mother to 
see. A mob came piling into the chateau headed 
by four officers. All the furniture and valuables 
that were not destroyed they piled into a wagon 
and sent back to Luneville. Of the gardener who 
was telling me the story they demanded the keys 
of the wine cellars. No ; they did not injure him. 
They just held him by the arms while several 
dozen of the soldiers spat in his face. 

While the drunken crew were reeling about the 



" WITH THE HONORS OF WAR " 207 

place, one of them accidentally stumbled upon the 
secret underground passage leading to the famous 
grottoes. These grottoes and the underground 
connection of the chateau were built in the fifteenth 
century. They are a half mile away, situated only 
half above ground, the entrance looking out on a 
smooth lawn that extends to the edge of the river. 
Several giant trees, the trunks of which are 
covered with vines, half shelter the entrance, which 
is also obscured by climbing ivy. The interior 
was one of the treasures of France. The vaulted 
ceilings were done in wonderful mosaic; the 
walls decorated with marbles and rare sea shells. 
In every nook were marble pedestals and antique 
statuary, while the fountain in the center, 
supphed from an underground stream, was of 
porphyry inlaid with mosaic. 

The Germans looked upon it with appreciative 
eyes. But they were still very angry. Its 
destruction was a necessity of war. It could not 
be destroyed by artillery because it was half under 
ground and screened by the giant trees. But it 
could be destroyed by picks and axes. A squad 
of soldiers was detailed to the job. They did it 
thoroughly. The gardener took me there to see. 
Not a scrap of the mosaic remained. The foun- 
tain was smashed to bits. A headless Venus and 



2o8 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

a smashed and battered Adonis were lying prone 
upon the ground. 

The visitors of the chateau and environs after- 
ward joined their comrades in firing the town. 
Night had come. Also across the bridge waited 
the 150,000 reenforcements, come from Luneville. 
The five hundred of the two thousand inhabitants 
who remained were herded to the upper end of the 
town near the station. That portion was not to 
be destroyed because the German General would 
make his headquarters there. 

The inhabitants were to be given a treat. They 
were to witness the entrance of the hundred and 
fifty thousand — ^the power and might of Germany 
was to be exhibited to them. So while the flames 
leaped high from the burning city, reddening the 
sky for miles, while old men prayed, while women 
wept, while little children whimpered, the sound 
of martial music was heard down the street near 
the bridge. The infantry, packed in close forma- 
tion, the red light from the fire shining on their 
helmets, were doing the goose step up the main 
street to the station — the great German army had 
entered the city of Gerbeviller with the honors of 
war. 



CHAPTER XVII 

SISTEE JULIE, CHEVAlilEE OF THE LEGION OF HONOE 

A LITTLE round apple dumpling sort of woman 
in nun's costume was bobbing a curtsy to me 
from the doorway. In excited French she begged 
me to be seated. For I was ''Monsieur I'Ameri- 
cain" who had come to visit Gerbeviller, the little 
community nestling in the foothills of the Vosges, 
that has suffered quite as much from Germans as 
any city, even those in Belgium. It was her 
''grand pleasure" that I should come to visit her. 

I stared for a moment in amazement. I could 
scarcely realize that this plump, bobbing little 
person was the famous Sister Julie. I had pulled 
every wire I could discover among my acquaint- 
ances at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of 
War to be granted the privilege of making the 
trip into that portion of the forbidden "zone of 
military activity" where Sister Julie had made 
her name immortal. I carried a letter from one 
of the great officials of the Quai d'Orsay, ad- 
dressed to the little nun in terms of reverence 

209 



210 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

that one might use toward his mother. He signed 
himself '* Yours, with great affection," after crav- 
ing that she would grant me audience. And 
there she was, with the letter still unopened in 
her hand, telling me how glad she was to see me. 

I confess I expected a different type of woman. 
I thought a different type necessary to handle the 
German invaders in the fashion Sister Julie 
handled them at Gerheviller. I imagined a tall, 
commanding woman — like Madame Macherez, 
Mayor of Soissons — ^would enter the little sitting 
room where I had been waiting that sunny morn- 
ing. 

In that little sitting room the very atmosphere 
of war is not permitted. There is too much close 
at hand, where nine-tenths of the city lies in ashes 
as a result of the German visit. So in that room 
there is nothing but comfort, peace and good 
cheer. Potted geraniums fill the window boxes, 
pretty chintz curtains cover the glass. Where 
bullets had torn furrows in the plaster and drilled 
holes in the woodwork the wounds were concealed 
as far as possible. It was hard to realize that the 
deep, rumbling roars that shook the house while 
we talked were caused by a Franco-German artil- 
lery duel only a few kilometers away. 

The little woman drew out chairs from the cen- 




SISTER JULIE IN THE DOOR OP HER HOSPITAL 



SISTER JULIE 211 

ter table and we seated ourselves, slie talking 
continuously of how glad she was that one from 
''that great America" should want to see her and 
know about her work. Ah! her work, there was 
still so much to do ! 

She got up and toddled to the window, drawing 
aside the chintz curtains. ''Poor Gerbeviller ! " 
she sighed as we looked out over the desolate 
waste of burned houses. "My poor, poor Gerbe- 
viller ! " 

Tears stood in her brown eyes and fell upon 
the wide white collar of the religious order that 
she wore. She brushed them aside quickly and 
turned to the table, again all smiles and dimples. 
Yes! dimples, for although Sister Julie is small, 
she is undeniably plump. She has dimples in her 
cheeks and in her chin — chins I might say. She 
even has dimples on the knuckles of her hands, 
after the fashion of babies. Her face is round 
and rosy. Her voice low and mellow. She looks 
only about forty of her sixty years — a woman 
who seems to have taken life as something that is 
always good. Evil and Germans seem never to 
have entered her door. 

Then I remembered what this woman had done ; 
how all France is talking about her and is proud 
of her. How the President of the Eepublic went 



212 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

to the little, ruined city, accompanied by the 
Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of 
Deputies, and a great military entourage, just to 
hang the jeweled cross of the Legion of Honor 
about her neck. I wondered what they thought 
when she bobbed her curtsy in the doorway. 

For it took a war to distinguish this little 
woman from the crowd. Outside her order she 
was unknown before the Germans came to France. 
But it did not matter to her. She just went 
placidly and smilingly on her way — ''doing the 
Lord's work," as she told me. Then the day ar- 
rived when the Germans came, and this little 
round apple dumpling woman blew up. That is 
just the way it was. I could tell it from the way 
her brown eyes flashed when she told the tale to 
me. She was angry through and through just 
from the telling. She just exploded when the 
Germans entered her front door. And then her 
name was written indelibly on the scroll of fame 
as one of the great heroines of the war. 

The Germans wanted bread, did they? — such 
was the way the story began — well, what did they 
mean by coming to her for it? They burned the 
baker's shop, didn't they, on the way through the 
town? Well, how did they expect her to furnish 
them bread? Her bread was for her people. 



SISTER JULIE 213 

Yes, she had a good supply of it. But the Ger- 
mans could find their own bread. 

The German officer pointed a revolver at her 
head. She reached out her hand and struck it 
from his grasp. Then she waved a plump finger 
under his nose. Her voice was no longer low and 
mellow. It was commanding and austere. How 
dared he point a revolver at her — a ^'religieuse," 
a nun? He could get right out of her house, too, 
— and get out quick. 

The officer's heavy jaw dropped in astonish- 
ment. He backed his way along the narrow hall, 
not stopping to pick up his weapon, and kicking 
backward the file of soldiers that crowded behind 
him. At the door Sister Julie put a detaining 
hand on his shoulder. 

' ' You are an officer, ' ' she said — the man under- 
stood French perfectly. "Well, while your sol- 
diers are setting fire to the town, you just tell 
them to keep out of this end of the street. This 
is my house ; it is for me and the five Sisters with 
me. Now we have made it a hospital. You bar- 
barians just keep out of here with your burning. ' ' 

Barbarians! The officer raised his fist to 
strike. Something that was not of heaven made 
Sister Julie's eyes deadly black. The man low- 
ered his fist, quailing. "The devil!" he said. 



214 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Yes, barbarians! She almost sbouted tbe word 
at him — and it was quite understood tbat bis men 
were not to burn the hospital or the houses ad- 
joining. 

The crowd cleared out of the house rapidly and 
the breadth of Sister Julie's form filled the door- 
way. It was night and the burning was progress- 
ing rapidly, the Grermans methodically firing 
every house. Some soldiers came to the house 
next to the hospital, and broke open the door. 
Sister Julie left her position in the hospital door- 
way and advanced upon them. 

*'Go away from here," she ordered. ''Don't 
you dare set that house afire. It is next to the 
hospital. If it burns the hospital will burn, too. 
So go away — your officers have said that you are 
not to burn this end of the street. ' ' 

The soldiers gazed at her stupidly. She ad- 
vanced upon them, waving her arms. Several, 
after staring a moment, suddenly made the sign 
of the cross, and the entire party disappeared 
down the street to continue their destruction else- 
where. 

The little nun then left her post at the door. 
She went to see that her food supplies were safe. 
She had a conference with the other Sisters, and 
visited the beds of the thirteen wounded that the 



SISTER JULIE 215 

house already contained. Six of the wounded 
were of the band of seventy-five chasseurs who 
had held the Gerbeviller bridge against the Ger- 
mans — twelve thousand Germans for eight hours 
— ^until their ammunition gave out. The others 
were civilians who were shot when the Germans 
finally entered the town. 

After visiting her wounded, Sister Julie went 
out the back door of the house accompanied by 
two of the Sisters. The three carried large 
clothes baskets, kitchen knives, and a hatchet. 
Through the gardens and behind the burning 
houses they passed down the hill to the part of 
the city near the river, which was already smol- 
dering in ashes. They went into the ruined 
barns, where the cows and horses were all burned 
alive. I was shown a bleached white bone, a 
souvenir of one of the cows. 

With the hatchet and knives they secured 
enough bones and flesh from the dead animals to 
fill the two great baskets. Then they climbed 
painfully up the hill, behind the burning buildings, 
to the back door of their home. Water was 
drawn from their well, and a great fire built in 
the old-fashioned chimney in the kitchen. The 
enormous kettle was filled with the water, the 
meat and the bones, and soon the odor from gal- 



2i6 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Ions of soup penetrated the outer door to the 
street. Again a German officer headed a delega- 
tion into the hall. 

**You have food here," he announced to Sister 
Julie. 

*'We have," she snapped back. She was very 
busy. She waved the butcher knife under his 
nose. She then told him that the soup was for 
the people of Gerbeviller and for her wounded. 
She expressed no regret that there would be none 
left for Germans. 

The officer said that the twelve thousand who 
entered Gerbeviller that afternoon was the ad- 
vance column. The main body, with the commis- 
sariat, was coming shortly. Meanwhile, they 
were hungry. They would take Sister Julie's 
supply. They would take it — eh? Take it? 
They would only do that over her dead body. 
Meanwhile, they would leave her kitchen in- 
stantly. They did — the butcher knife making fe- 
rocious passes behind them on their way to the 
door. Sister Julie was still doing her ''work for 
the Lord." 

She then ordered all the wash tubs filled with 
water and brought inside the hall. The fire was 
coming into the street. Dense smoke was every- 
where. Even the Germans now seemed willing 



SISTER JULIE 217 

to save that particular part of Gerbeviller. It 
was the portion near the railway station and the 
telegraph. A substantial building near the gare 
would make an excellent headquarters for their 
General, who was due to arrive shortly. The 
civilians (only a few of the 2,000 inhabitants 
remained) were all herded into a field just on the 
outskirts of the town. Sister Julie, with Sister 
Hildegarde, sallied forth with their soup, and fed 
them. The next day she would see that the Ger- 
mans allowed them to come to the hospital for 
more. 

When she returned, a number of soldiers who 
had discovered a wine cellar were reeling up the 
street. They stopped in front of the hospital, 
but turned their attention to the house opposite. 
They would burn it. It had evidently been for- 
gotten. They broke into the place, and in a 
moment flames could be seen through the lower 
windows. 

Sister Julie called to the soldiers. They stared 
at her from the middle of the road. She 
motioned for them to come to her. They came. 
She told them to follow her into the hall. There 
she showed them the wash tubs full of water. 
They were to carry those tubs across the street 
and put out the fire they had started, and which 



2i8 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

would endanger the hospital. This was accord- 
ing to orders given by the officers. After putting 
out the fire they were to bring the tubs back and 
refill them from the well in the back yard. The 
work was too heavy for the Sisters. 

When these orders were obeyed, Sister Julie 
carried a little camp chair to the front steps and 
began a vigil that lasted all night long and half 
the next day. She saw the great German army of 
a hundred and fifty thousand march by, the band 
playing ' ' Deutschland liber Alles," the infantry 
doing the goose step as they passed the burning 
houses. Four times during the night the tubs 
of water in the hall were emptied and refilled 
when the flames crept close to her house. 

At dawn next morning four officers approached 
her where she sat upon the doorstep. One of 
them informed her that, inasmuch as she was 
concealing French soldiers with arms inside the 
house, they intended to make a search. 

''You are telling a lie," she informed them 
calmly, and did not budge. Two of the officers 
drew revolvers. Sister Julie sniffed contemptu- 
ously. The first officer again spoke. But his 
tone altered. It was less bumptious. He said 
that, inasmuch as the house had been spared the 
flames, at least an investigation was necessary. 



SISTER JULIE 219 

Sister Julie arose and started inside. The 
officers stopped her. Two of them would lead the 
way. The other two would follow. The pair, 
with drawn revolvers, entered first and tiptoed 
cautiously down the hall. Then came the little 
nun. The second pair drew poniards and brought 
up the rear. She directed them to the rooms on 
the first floor, the sitting room, dining room and 
the kitchen, where Sister Hildegarde was busy 
over the fire. Then they went upstairs to the 
beds of the wounded. The first officer insisted 
that the covers be drawn back from each bed 
to make sure that the occupants were really 
wounded. Sister Julie remained silent at the 
door. As they turned to leave, she said with 
sarcasm, but with dignity: ''You have seen. You 
know that I have spoken the truth. We are six 
Sisters of Mercy. Our work is to care for the 
sick. We will care for your German wounded, as 
well as our French. You may bring them here." 

That morning the invaders began battle with 
the French, who had finished their entrenchments 
some kilometers on the other side of the town. 
At night the Germans accepted Sister Julie's 
invitation, and brought two hundred and fifty- 
eight wounded to her house. They completely 
filled the place. They were placed in rows in the 



220 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

sitting room, the dining room, and the hall. 
They were even in the kitchen and in the attic. 
The weather was fine and they were stretched in 
rows in the garden. The few other houses 
undestroyed by fire were also turned into hos- 
pitals, and for fourteen days Sister Julie and her 
five assistants scarcely slept. They just passed 
the time giving medicine and food and nursing 
wounds. By the fourteenth day, the French had 
made a considerable advance and were dropping 
shells into the town, so the Grermans decided to 
take away their own wounded. 

During all this time daily rations were served 
to the civilian survivors, on orders secured by 
Sister Julie at the German headquarters. The 
civilians were ill-treated, but they were fed. Sis- 
ter Julie gave me concrete instances of outrage. 
Many were killed for no reason whatever; some 
were sent as hostages to Germany. During 
fourteen days they were herded in the field. 
Afterward ten were found dead, with their hands 
manacled. Sister Julie told me one instance of 
an old woman, a paralytic, seventy-eight years 
old, who was taken out in an automobile to show 
the various wine cellars among the neighboring 
farms. The old woman had not been out of her 
house for years and did not know the wine cellars. 



SISTER JULIE 221 

So the Germans killed her. Sister Julie went out 
at night and found her body. She and Sister 
Hildegarde buried it. 

On the morning of the fifteenth day, the battle 
was fiercer than ever. The French had taken a 
hill near the outskirts, and mitrailleuse bullets 
frequently whistled through the streets. Sev- 
eral times they entered the windows of Sister 
Julie's house and buried themselves in the walls. 
But none of the Sisters was hurt. 

There was a lull in the fighting for the next 
few days. The French were very busy at some- 
thing — the Germans knew not what. They 
became more insolent than ever, and drank of 
the wine they had stored at the gare. In the 
ruins of the church they found the grilled iron 
strong box, where the priest, who had been sent 
to Germany as a hostage, had locked up the golden 
communion vessels, afterward giving the key to 
Sister Julie. The lock was of steel, and very old 
and strong. They tried to break it, but failed. 
They came to Sister Julie for the key, and she 
sent them packing. ''I lied to them," she said 
softly. **I told them I didn't have the key." 

Through the grilled iron of the box the soldiers 
could see the vessels-. They were of fine gold, 
and very ancient. They were given to the 



222 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

cliurcli in the fifteenth century by Eene, Due de 
Lorraine and King of Jerusalem. The strong 
box was riveted to the foundations of the church 
with bands of steel and could not be carried away. 
They shot at the lock, to break it. But it did 
not break. Instead the bullets penetrated the 
box, a half dozen tearing ragged holes in the 
vessels. The wine finally became of greater 
interest than the gold, and the soldiers went away. 
That night Sister Julie went alone into the ruins 
of the church, opened the box, and took the ves- 
sels out. 

She paused in her story, got up from her chair, 
and unlocked a cabinet in the wall. From it she 
brought the vessels wrapped in a white cloth. I 
took the great golden goblet in my hands and saw 
the holes of the German bullets. Sister Julie sat 
silent, looking out through the chintz curtains into 
the street. Then she smiled. 

She was thinking of the eighth morning after 
the wounded had been taken away. That was 
the happiest morning of her life, she told me. 
At 5 o'clock that morning, just after daybreak, 
Sister Hildegarde had come to her bed to tell her 
that the Grermans stationed near the gare in that 
part of the town all seemed to be going to the 



SISTER JULIE 223 

ruined part, near the river, in the opposite direc- 
tion from the French. A few minutes later Sister 
Julie got up and looked from the window. Then 
she almost fell down the stairs in her rush to get 
out of doors. About fifty yards up the street was 
a watering trough. Seated on horseback before 
that trough, watering their animals, laughing 
and smoking cigarettes, were six French dra- 
goons. 

'^I cried at the blessed sight of them," she said. 
''They sat there, so gay, so debonair, as only 
Frenchmen know how to sit on horses." Sister 
Julie hurried to them. They smiled at her and 
saluted as she approached. 

"But do you know the Germans are here!" 
she anxiously inquired. ''You may be taken 
prisoners." 

"Oh, no, we won't," they answered in chorus. 
"There are thirty thousand more of us just 
behind — due here in about two minutes. The 
whole French army is on the advance." 

Then came thirty thousand. After the thirty 
thousand came more thousands. All that day the 
street echoed to the feet of marching Frenchmen. 
Their faces were dark and terrible when they saw 
what the Germans had done. Most of the day 



224 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Sister Julie sat on her doorstep and wept for joy. 
Since that morning not a German has been seen 
in Grerbeviller. 

Sister Julie ceased her story and wiped the 
tears that had been running in streams down her 
cheeks. "We heard the rattle of a drum outside 
the window. It was the signal of the town crier 
with news for the population. Sister Julie opened 
the window and looked out. It was the announce- 
ment of the meeting to be held that afternoon, a 
meeting that she had arranged for discussion of 
plans for rebuilding the town. Five hundred of 
the population had returned. There was so much 
work to do. The streets must be cleared of the 
debris. The sagging walls must be torn down 
and new buildings erected. It would be done 
quickly, immediately almost; aid was forthcoming 
from many quarters. The new houses would be 
better than the old. The streets were to be wide 
and straight, not narrow and crooked. Gerbe- 
viller was to arise from her ashes modern and 
improved. And only a few miles away the can- 
non still roared and thundered. 

I asked her about the Cross of the Legion of 
Honor given her by President Poincare. I asked 
why she did not wear it. A pleased flush 
deepened the color in her rosy cheeks. I shall 



SISTER JULIE 225 

always remember the grace and dignity of her 
answer. 

^'I do not wear it because it was not meant for 
me alone," she said. "It was given to the 
women of France who have done their duty." 

*'Not the little red ribbon of the order," I per- 
sisted. ''You should pin that on your dress." 

But Sister Julie shook her head. She is a 
"religieuse," she explained. Nuns do not wear 
decorations. They are doing the work of the 
Lord. 



CHAPTEE XVIII 

THE SILENT CANNON 

On a hill commanding a valley stretching away 
toward the Ehine is a dense pine forest. From 
its edge I looked far across the frontier of Ger- 
many. 

In a little clearing a French artillery Major 
came to meet me and my guide. Then we walked 
for miles, it seemed, through dense shade over 
paths thick with needles, until we came upon an 
artillery encampment. From the conversation 
between my guide — a Captain of the General StafP 
— and the artillery Major I learned that we were 
about to see something new in cannon. 

I am always eager to see something new in 
cannon. Since my visit to the great factories 
at Le Creusot, when I was permitted to cable care- 
fully censored descriptions of the new giant guns 
France was preparing against Germany, I have 
always been looking for these guns in operation. 
So, when I saw that here was no ordinary battery, 
I began the molding of phrases to use in cabling 

226 



THE SILENT CANNON 227 

my impressions. I did not realize then that I 
was to have the most poignant illustration since 
the war began of the mighty fundamental differ- 
ences between the Teutonic and Latin civilizations. 

On a gentle slope, where the tops of pine trees 
below came up level with the brow of the hill, 
there was a great excavation, such as might have 
been dug for the foundations of a chateau. The 
front part, facing the valley, was all screened with 
barricades and covered with evergreens. 

We entered the excavation from the rear, down 
winding steps lined on either side with towering 
trees. These steps were all concrete, as was also 
the entire bottom of the excavation. The air was 
very fresh and cool as we descended. Up above 
the breeze gently swayed the trees, which closed 
over us so densely, dimming the daylight. I was 
reminded of a dairy I knew on an up-State farm in 
New York. I almost looked for jars of butter in 
the dim recess of the cool concrete cellar. I could 
almost catch the odor of fresh milk. 

But in the center of our cavern was a huge piece 
of mechanism that I recognized as the ' ' something 
new in cannon." Above the great steel base the 
long, ugly barrel stretched many yards through 
an aperture in front, and was covered over with 
evergreens. The Major described the gun in de- 



228 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

tail — ^its size, range and weight of its projectiles. 

I walked to the front of the aperture to look 
at the barrel lying horizontally on the tops of the 
pine trees growing on the slope below. The 
branches had been carefully cut from the higher 
trees to give a view over the valley. I got out 
my field glasses and fixed them on the horizon 
many miles away — just how many miles away I 
am also not allowed to say. For a long time I 
studied that horizon just where it melted into 
mist. Then the sun's rays brightened it, and I 
could see more clearly. 

''Looks like a city out there," I said aloud. 

"It is," said the artillery Major behind me. 

I looked again and could dimly make out what 
appeared to be the spires of churches. 

"Look a little to the right; you can see a much 
larger building over there," the Major said. 

I looked, and a huge gray mass loomed out of 
the mist. 

"That's a cathedral," he said. 

I put the glasses down and walked around to 
the open breech of the giant cannon, the mechan- 
ism of which another officer was explaining. He 
gave a lever a twist, and the huge barrel slowly 
moved from right to left over the tops of the pine 
trees. 



THE SILENT CANNON 229 

The officer was saying in answer to a question : 

* ' No, we are quiet now. We are just waiting. ' ' 

"Waiting for what?" I asked. 

"Oh, just waiting until everything is ready." 

"Then what will you do?" 

"Oh, destroy the forts, I hope. This fellow 
ought to account for several," and he patted the 
side of the barrel. 

"Will you destroy the city?" I asked. 

"What for?" he asked. "What good would 
that do ? If we expect to occupy a city we do not 
want it destroyed. Besides," — he shrugged his 
shoulders expressively — "we are not Germans." 

I walked up to the gun and stared into the 
breech. I adjusted my glasses again and through 
them looked down the barrel. Out on the horizon 
I could see the huge gray mass that the Major 
said was a cathedral. The gun wa« trained 
directly upon it — ^this silent gun. 

' * It could hit that cathedral now, ' ' I thought to 
myself. Then I thought of the Cathedral of 
Eheims. Again I stared through the glasses into 
the barrel of the gun. The light was better now, 
and the tops of the spires were visible above the 
bulky gray mass. 

It was the Cathedral of Metz. 



CHAPTER XIX 

D^AETAGKAN AND THE SOUL OF FRANCE 

I MET d'Artagnan in a forest of Lorraine. 
Perhaps Athos, Porthos and Aramis were there 
too, somewhere in the shadows. I saw only 
d'Artagnan and talked with him as long as it takes 
to tell the story. I had forgotten how he looked 
to Dumas pere, but I knew him at once by his 
bearing and his spirit. His swashbuckling 
manners are just as arrogantly gay now in the 
forest of Lorraine and in the trenches of the 
Vosges as they were long ago in old Paris and on 
the highroad. He swaggers just as buoyantly 
with the ''poilus" of the Eepublic as with the 
musketeers of the Cardinal. 

D'Artagnan is a captain now; when I met him 
he was attached to the staff of a General of 
Brigade. He is always your beau ideal of a man. 
He looks just what he is — a fine French soldier. 

My first glimpse of him was from the automo- 
bile in which I was riding with an officer from the 
Great General Staff whose business it was to con- 

230 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 231 

duct press correspondents to the front. D'Arta- 
gnan was walking towards us on tlie lonely forest 
road, and signaled with a long alpenstock for 
our driver to stop. He wore the regulation blue 
uniform, with the three gold stripes of a captain 
on his sleeve. He had no sword. I find that 
swords are no longer the fashion with the *' work- 
ing officers" at the front. They are in the way. 

Our car slid to a stop. D 'Artagnan's free hand 
came to salute. It was an imposing salute — one 
that only d'Artagnan could have made. His 
heels snapped together with a gallant click of 
spurs ; his arm swept up in a semi-circle from his 
body; his rigid fingers touched the visor of his 
steel helmet — one of the new battle helmets, very 
light, strong and painted horizon blue to match 
the uniform. The chin strap was of heavy black 
leather instead of the brass chain of ante-bellum 
parade helmets. 

D'Artagnan, from the center of the road, roared 
out his name and mission. His name, in his pres- 
ent reincarnation, is known throughout the French 
army, in fact throughout France. It is known 
to the Grermans too, but correspondents are not 
permitted to give the names of their officers until 
the war is over. Anyway I immediately recog- 
nized him as d'Artagnan. 



232 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

His mission, announced with gusto, was to guide 
us along the lines held by his brigade. He leaped 
to our running-board and ordered our chauffeur 
to advance. 

He was an impressive figure, even clinging to 
the side of the jolting car. His body lithe and 
powerful; his hands lean and strong; his face, 
under the visor of the helmet, was d'Artagnan's 
own. A forehead high and bronzed. Eyes blue 
and both merry and ferocious. Cheeks high but 
rounded. His hair, only a little of it showing 
under the helmet, was black, but just enough griz- 
zled to proclaim him in middle age. His mus- 
tache — it was a mustache of dreams and imagi- 
nation — his mustache stuck out inches beyond 
the cheeks, and was wondrously twisted and 
curled. 

His medals proved him the survivor of many 
hard campaigns. Most officers when at the front 
wear only the ribbons of their decorations, if they 
have any, and leave the medals at home. But 
not d'Artagnan. He wore all of his medals, in 
a blazing row across his chest. And he had all 
that were possible for any man in his position 
to win. First came the African Colonial medal, 
then the medal for service in Indo-China. Next 
was the Medaille de Maroc. In the center was 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 233 

the Legion of Honor and then the Croix de 
Guerre, with four stars affixed, indicating the 
number of times during the present war, 
d'Artagnan has been mentioned in despatches 
for courage under fire. Finally came the only 
foreign medal — the Eussian Cross of St. George 
— ^given by the Czar during the present war to a 
very few Frenchmen, and only ''for great 
bravery. ' ' 

As d'Artagnan again stopped the car and we 
climbed out into the road, which had narrowed to 
a forest path, my companion pointed to the 
medals. 

"Our captain is a professional soldier, you see," 
he said. "He has fought all his life — didn't just 
come back when his class was called for this war. ' ' 

But I already knew that. How could d'Arta- 
gnan be anything but a soldier — a professional, if 
you please — but fighting for the love of it, and the 
glory? 

He tramped along in front of us, the spurs 
of his high boots jingling, and twirling the ends 
of his fierce mustaches. I glimpsed soldiers 
through the trees. Some came out to the path 
and saluted. To all d'Artagnan returned a sa- 
lute with the same wonderful joy in it, as though 
it were the first salute of the day, or as if he were 



234 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

passing a general. There was the same swing 
outward of the arm, the same rigid formality of 
bringing his hand to the helmet. The pomposity 
of the salute he may have learned from Porthos, 
but the dignity, the impressiveness of it, belonged 
to d'Artagnan. 

His soldiers adored him; we could see that as 
we followed. Their eyes smiled and approved. 
And the stamp of great admiration was in their 
faces. 

''They would go through hell with him," said 
my companion. ''A good many of them have. 
He is the favorite of his brigade." 

''He ought to be," I replied. "He is d'Arta- 
gnan. ' ' 

"D'Artagnan!" my companion cried. "Why, 
so he is. I never thought of it. But he is 
d'Artagnan — alive and fighting." 

He was a little distance ahead of us, among the 
trees. A sergeant approached him to make a 
report. D'Artagnan leaned back grandly on one 
leg, his chest forward, his chin tilted up, his hand, 
as usual, twisting the mustachios. 

"He loves it," I said. "He loves everything 
about it — this war. When peace comes his life 
will lose its savor. ' ' 

My officer of the Great General Staff nodded; 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 235 

d'Artagnan returned jauntily, swinging his stick, 
and in ringing tones told us all that he had 
arranged for us to see. 

"We followed him through a program that has 
been described many times by correspondents 
since the war began — the encampments, the bat- 
teries and the trenches. But never before did 
a correspondent have such a guide. It was not 
my first trip to the front ; but d 'Artagnan led me 
into advanced trenches, closer to the Germans 
than I had ever been before. We crawled on 
hands and knees and spoke in whispers. But I 
was fascinated because d'Artagnan, just as 
Dumas might have shown him, crawled ahead, 
waved his hand in quick, impatient gestures for 
us to hurry, looked back to laugh and point 
through a loophole to great rents in the wire 
entanglements showing where a recent German 
attack had failed. 

Only once, at a point where a road separated 
two trench sections, and always dangerous 
because of German snipers, did he order us to 
pass around behind in the safety of a boyau or 
communication trench. He leaped across the bar- 
rier with a derisive yell of triumph and a catlike 
quickness too astonishing to draw the German 
fire. 



236 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

Otherwise lie let us take far bigger chances 
than usually permitted visitors — and he made 
us like them. We squinted carelessly through 
risky loopholes because d'Artagnan did it first. 
We talked aloud because he did, and at times when 
ordinary guides would have made us keep silent. 
He stood up on a trench ledge and looked through 
a periscope, then jumped down laughing, holding 
out the periscope to show where a bullet had 
drilled a hole on the side only a few inches above 
his head. It was a game of foUow the leader, and 
we followed because the leader was d'Artagnan. 

''They will get him some day — he takes such 
chances,"' an officer remarked. 

"They haven't got him yet and he has had 
more war than any of us, ' ' another replied. 

On our way back, behind the line encampments, 
we met several soldiers carrying tureens of soup. 
D'Artagnan halted them, solemnly lifted the 
covers and tasted the contents. Then he passed 
the spoon to us. 

''It is good," he pronounced, and patted the 
soldiers on the back, as we hurried on. 

He now took us to his own quarters, in a dense 
grove of pines. His house was of pine boughs, 
half above and half underground, with a bomb- 
proof cavern at the rear. Its furniture was a 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 237 

deal table and a bed of straw. We sat around on 
camp stools and an orderly brought in tea. 

D'Artagnan then changed the subject for a few 
minutes from war. He had visited nearly all the 
world, including America. He turned to me, and 
to my surprise spoke in English. It was a very 
peculiar English, but it was not funny coming 
from the lips of d'Artagnan. He told me about 
his trip to America — how he did not have much 
money at the time, so he went as a lecturer to the 
French Societies in the big cities of the United 
States. It was hard to picture this big, weather- 
beaten soldier in such a role, until he told me the 
subject of his lecture. It was ''The Soul of 
France" — always the Soul of France, a soul 
chivalrous, grand and unconquerable, that would 
forever make the world remember and expect. 

In Boston he had tried to speak in English, 
at the Boston City Club. He pronounced the let- 
ter "i" in city, as in the word ''site." He told 
me the lecture in English was very funny. Per- 
haps it was ; but the Boston City Club had not seen 
their lecturer in the forest of Lorraine. They did 
not know that he was d'Artagnan. 

After tea he showed us the park made by his 
soldiers in front of his "villa," as the semi- 
underground hut was called. A sign painted on 



238 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

a tree announced the ''Pare des Braves." Little 
well-groomed paths wound among the pine 
needles; rustic seats were built about the trees. 
A dozen little beds of mountain flowers made gay 
stars and crescents that would not have disgraced 
the Tuileries. The ''Pare des Braves" had even 
an aviary, made of wire netting (left over from 
the barricades) built about a tree. D'Artagnan 
proudly pointed out a great owl and a cowering 
cuckoo in different compartments of this unique 
cage. 

But the chef d'oeuvre of the Pare was the recon- 
structed tableau of one of the brigade's heroic 
episodes. A tiny rustic bridge spanned a minia- 
ture brook; beside the brook was built a mill and 
beyond was an old farm-house and orchard. 
Seven tiny French chasseurs, of wood and painted 
blue, were holding the bridge against a horde of 
wooden Germans painted gray. 

On a great tree shading this story of a glorious 
hour in the history of his "little braves," 
d'Artagnan had fixed a wooden slab, telling its 
details in verse. 

"II y avait sept petits chasseurs 
Qui ne connaissaient pas la peur." 
(There were seven Httle chasseurs 
Who knew no fear.) 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 239 

That is the way the story began ; and each verse 
began and ended with the same words. I wish I 
could have copied it all; but d'Artagnan, the 
author, was impatient to move on. 

So we left the Pare and followed into the gloom 
of the forest and up the steep slope of the moun- 
tain. It faced the enemy's trenches. From the 
top one could look across the frontier of Germany. 

D'Artagnan was silent now, plunging along 
through the deepening twilight. Suddenly we 
emerged on the edge of a clearing still bright with 
sunshine : a clearing perhaps several hundred feet 
square, lying on the steep hillside almost at an 
angle of about forty-five degrees. 

D'Artagnan stopped, took off his helmet, then 
walked slowly into the open. We took off our 
hats and followed him. 

The clearing was a military cemetery — ^it held 
the graves of d'Artagnan 's dead. A tall white 
wooden cross at the top rose almost to the tops 
of the pines growing above it. On the cross- 
piece was written: 

''To our comrades of the — th Brigade, killed 
by the enemy." 

At the foot of the great cross, stretched in 
military alignment over the clearing were 
hundreds of graves headed by little crosses. So 



240 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

abrupt was tlie slope the dead soldiers stood 
almost erect — facing Germany. Narrow grav- 
eled walks separated them, and on each cross 
hung festoons of flowers kept always fresh by the 
comrades who remained. 

We followed d'Artagnan across the silent place 
and stood behind him as he faced, with bared 
head, the great cross. He made the sign of the 
cross upon his breast. There was not a bowed 
head: we all lifted them high to read the words 
written there. 

No one spoke; the wind rustled softly in the 
tops of the pines that pressed so densely about us. 
It was dark among the trees, but the clearing was 
still mellow with the fading sunlight. 

''The sun always comes here first in the morn- 
ing,'^ d'Artagnan said softly, "and this is the 
last place from which it goes." 

He swung around with his back to the great 
cross and flung out his alpenstock in a gesture 
that swept the valley before us. His voice rose 
harshly : 

''Over there is the enemy," he thundered. 
' ' Those who rest here look at them face to face ! ' ' 

His arm dropped ; his voice sank. 

"They didn't get over there. But their souls 



THE SOUL OF FRANCE 241 

remain here always to urge us and to point the 
way which we must go. ' ' 

He stopped and seemed to listen. The wind 
had died; even the tree tops were still. The sun 
had gone; the dark began to sweep up over the 
graves. D'Artagnan leaned upon his alpenstock; 
his eyes were closed. 

We did not stir, nor hardly breathe. D'Arta- 
gnan was in communion with the soul of his be- 
loved France. 



PAET FIVE 
THREE CHAPTERS IN CONCLUSION 



CHAPTER XX 

A EEARPOST OF WAR 

After a year or more of war, even a latter-day 
war correspondent who gets a personally 
restricted war office Cook's tour to tlie front semi- 
occasionally, may yearn for peace. This is 
especially true in the case of a regular corre- 
spondent with the French army, because to France 
there come so many senators, statesmen and 
"molders of neutral opinion," bearing letters 
from President, King or Prelate, that the regular 
correspondent has hard work to edge in even his 
legitimate number of tours. 

One morning I awoke early, far from the firing 
line, safe in my Paris flat. Before breakfast I 
read the hotel arrivals listed in the newspaper. 
The names of several molders were there. I 
knew that all their letters stated definitely what 
whales they were. I knew that the tour directors 
would not be able to resist them and that my seat 
in the next front-going limousine would probably 
be held in another name. So in the words of the 

245 



246 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

ancient British music-hall classic I decided that **I 
didn't like war and all that sort of thing." 

Twelve hours later I was standing on an old 
stone jetty that runs out to meet the forty-foot 
tides on the north coast of Brittany. It was as 
far away as I could get and still retain an official 
connection as correspondent with the French 
army. The tiny hamlet at the end of the jetty 
has an official name. The name does not matter. 
There is no railroad, no post office, no telegraph. 
But the place is known because it was there that 
Pierre Loti wrote his great story of the Iceland 
Fisherman. There was nothing to disturb the 
thoughts, nothing to jar the nerves. All was 
quiet and peace ; of war there was not the slightest 
suspicion. 

The water at the end of the jetty was thirty 
feet deep, but so clean that one could see through 
it as through air. I watched a crab waddle along 
the bottom and disappear under a rock. Then 
I got out my army glasses and swept the coast. 
For miles tremendous headlands stuck out in the 
sea, rolling over treacherous rocks. Before me 
was the He de Brehat, the ancient home of the 
pirates, which thrusts an arm far out into the 
Atlantic — an arm that holds a lighthouse to tell 



A REARPOST OF WAR 247 

mariners returning from Iceland that they are 
almost home. 

Between the island and the mainland the out- 
going tide swirled along at a rate of twelve sea 
miles per hour. I turned the glasses to the coast 
where the tiny Breton stone cottages were tucked 
behind rocks and hills that shelter them from 
storms and the long and terrible winter. Now 
they were bowers of color; clusters of roses and 
geraniums bloomed on garden walls, tall holly- 
hocks stood sentinel before the doors. 

I dropped the glasses and sighed contentedly. 
Here I had found peace. 

Near the old stone jetty a man was swimming. 
Suddenly he sat bolt upright on the water. His 
legs spread straight before him and his hands 
flapped idly at little waves. Occasionally he 
tugged at a long drooping walrus mustache, then 
rubbed the salt spray from his lips. He was a 
long angular individual and from my position on 
the jetty he appeared to be entirely unclad. 

"He is sitting on the top of a rock that is 
flooded at high tide, ' ' some one near me remarked. 
As the words were spoken, the bather flopped 
from his place and swam toward us. He was 
puffing heavily when he grasped the stone side 



248 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

of the jetty and pulled himself up. I then saw 
that I was mistaken as to his nudity, for he wore 
the strangest bathing costume that I had ever 
beheld. It consisted of white cotton trunks about 
eight inches wide. On one side, embroidered in 
yellow silk was a vision of the rising sun; skin 
tight against the other side was a blue pansy. 

I was fascinated, and watched the man trudge 
up the winding road that led from the jetty. A 
ray of the lowering sun flashed on the embroidered 
pansy rapidly drying against his flanks as he dis- 
appeared in the doorway of a cottage. I turned 
to an old fisherman who was puttering about a 
sail boat : 

*'It looks Japanezy, that bathing suit," I said. 
The old man puifed at his pipe: "No; his wife 
made it," he replied. ''He wrote to her that he 
had learned to swim so she made it and sent it up 
to him. He had never seen the ocean before he 
came here. He is from the Midi. ' ' 

"Ah," I replied, ''and what did he wear before 
she sent it?" 

The old man shrugged his shoulders. "About 
here, you know, it doesn't much matter about bath- 
ing suits. There aren't many folks about." 

"Who is he?" I asked. "Is he a summer 
visitor?" 



A REARPOST OF WAR 249 

''Summer visitor!" the old man gasped. 
''Summer visitor — why he hates this place and 
everything in it. He only learned to swim 
because he had nothing else to do and because 
he hates it so." 

' ' Hates it ! " I ejaculated. ' ' Well, why on earth 
is he here then?" 

"He's here because he^s got to be here," the 
old chap replied. "He's mobilized here. He's 
a soldier!" 

A cigarette that I had just taken from its case, 
fell from my nerveless fingers into the water and 
swirled out with the tide. 

A soldier — a soldier in my retreat. How 
unspeakably annoying. And in that bathing suit 
I never would have suspected him at all. 

The old fisherman explained, while I lugubri- 
ously leaned over the jetty and watched that crab 
puddling about his rock. There were eleven more 
of them — soldiers, I mean — they all lived in the 
little cottage near the jetty. They were there to 
guard the cable between the mainland and the 
He de Brehat, two miles away. They guarded it 
the twenty-four hours of the day — those twelve. 
Every two hours one of them mounted guard 
where the cable comes up from the sea and sol- 
emnly guarded it from German attack. 



250 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

The old fisherman pointed behind me. I turned 
and there, even as he had explained, I saw a man 
in the blue coat and red pants of the French 
territorial army. From the trenches the red 
pants have gone into the historic past. Nowadays 
the red pants are only for the territorials. 

This particular cable sentry was also from the 
Midi, my fisherman explained. He too disliked 
the sea. He sat there and stared moodily into 
the sun that was just in the act of gloriously 
descending into the water. A last ray caught the 
steel bayonet of the Lebel rifle lying across his 
knees. 

I left the jetty and walked up the winding road 
to the village. I went to the single store to buy 
tobacco and to hear the talk of the people. 
There were no newspapers, I thought, so their talk 
could not be about the war. Also there I would 
avoid the sight of the soldiers, because the store 
had liquor on its list of commodities. It is for- 
bidden to soldiers to enter such places except at 
certain hours. 

A fresh-faced Breton girl served out the 
tobacco. Cigars at two cents each were the most 
expensive tobacco purchase in the shop. I pur- 
chased a dozen and immediately became a celebrity 
and a millionaire. We talked. I asked her about 



A REARPOST OF WAR 251 

the countryside, about the people and about the 
wonderful lace coiffures of the peasant women. 
She told me how the women of one hamlet wear 
an entirely different '^coif" from those even of 
the neighboring farms and that throughout Brit- 
tany there are hundreds of different styles. 

Then I asked her about the men folks, the few 
who work in the fields and the great majority who 
go off in the boats to Iceland in the spring and 
come back ten months later — those who ever do 
come back at all. Then quite naturally we talked 
about the war. For she explained that to her 
people the war was not so terrible as the times 
of peace. Then it was impossible to get letters 
from a fishing schooner off the Iceland banks — 
now it was quite easy to get letters from the 
trenches every few days. The men suffered far 
greater losses from the perils of the northern 
ocean than since they were all mobilized to fight 
the Germans. Some were killed — that was nat- 
ural enough — ^but not half so many as the num- 
ber who just sailed out and disappeared. 

I was beginning to feel that perhaps the war 
was a benefit to this part of the world. 

An old woman entered the store to buy tobacco. 
She was bent and withered and her hand trembled 
as she drew the few coppers from her purse. Her 



252 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

voice was high and quavery when she spoke to 
the girl. She said that her son had jnst been 
wounded near Verdun. His condition was des- 
perate, but they were bringing him home — to her 
— to die on the old Brittany farm, on the hillside 
overlooking the sea. 

''Ah, la guerre," she murmured, ''c'est ter- 
rible. ' ' 

She explained that her other boys had been lost 
on a fishing schooner five years ago. She had 
tried to keep this one — ^had wanted him so much 
and tried so hard. But if she could see him again 
it would be better. She sighed and tucked purse 
and tobacco under her apron and clattered out on 
her heavy wooden sabots — her head bowed under 
her years and her woe. ''C'est pour la patrie," 
she murmured as she passed through the door. 

The next day was a Sunday. On Sunday all 
Brittany goes to church, and when one is in Brit- 
tany — ^well, one goes to church too. After the 
service I walked through the churchyard, which is 
also the graveyard of the village. It was so quiet, 
so restful and far removed from the world and 
the war, that I was content to remain there, for 
the eleven soldiers not guarding the cable were 
disporting themselves on the beach. 

I found a wonderful old wall at one end of the 



A REARPOST OF WAR 253 

graveyard. It was very old and overgrown with 
moss and ivy. It was a dozen feet high and 
crumbling in places. I did not know then that 
the wall was one of the sights of that countryside, 
but I did know when I saw it that I was look- 
ing upon the record of mighty tragedies. For it 
was covered over with little slabs, sometimes 
almost lost to view under the climbing vines. On 
the slabs were written the names of the men of 
the village who had gone to sea and never been 
heard of again. The dates were all there and 
the names of the ships. On several were the 
names of two or more brothers — on another slab 
were listed the males of three generations of one 
house. There were hundreds of names, the dates 
going back nearly a hundred years. Over many 
slabs with more recent dates were hung wreaths 
of flowers. 

It is called the wall of the disappeared. 

I read all the slabs with keenest interest; this 
record of toll taken by an element more resistless 
even than war. Indeed the battles of the nations 
seemed puny against the evidences of inexorable 
might written on the wall of the disappeared. 

Near the end of the wall a woman was praying. 
She was all in black, with the huge Breton widow's 
cowl drawn over her head, so that she looked like 



254 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

a witch in Macbeth. Above her head I noticed a 
freshly painted slab newly fixed in the wall. I 
read the inscription over her shoulder. The date 
was September, 1915. Instead of the name of a 
fishing boat that went to pieces in a gale off Ice- 
land, was recorded the man's regiment, followed 
by his name and the words, "disappeared in the 
battle of the Mame." 

The morning following I awoke early, with the 
sun and the sea sparkling at my window. I got 
into a regulation bathing suit and rushed down 
the old stone jetty for a plunge before breakfast. 
The water was so fresh — so full of life — the day 
was so wonderful — ^that I forgot all about the 
twelve soldiers, the old woman whose wounded 
son was coming home to die, the soldier of the 
battle of the Marne whose name was on the wall 
of the disappeared. 

There was no such thing as war as I dived off 
the jetty's end, deep into the cold, clean water. I 
opened my eyes under the water and could see 
the rocks on the bottom, still many feet below. 

Suddenly a roar struck my ears and I struck 
up to the surface. I knew how sound travels 
under water; and I knew this sound. It was a 
dull, terrifying boom. I rubbed the salt from my 
eyes and looked across the straits to the He de 



A REARPOST OF WAR 255 

Brehat. Crouclied under the towering rocks of 
the island, and lying low in the water, was an ugly 
black torpedo destroyer flying the tricolor. A 
cruiser flying the Union Jack, her masts just visi- 
ble across a far reach of the island, was picking 
her way slowly through the channel. The sound 
was a signal gun. 

I floated on the water and looked up at the sky. 
Up there, perhaps, is peace, I thought; and then 
I glanced hastily about for aeroplanes. 

As for this village, my thoughts continued, this 
insignificant village of L'Arcouest, par Ploubaz- 
lanec. Cotes du Nord, Brittany — that is the sono- 
rous official address of my tiny hamlet by the sea — 
why even if it is not in the "zone of military 
activity," it has all the elements that war brings, 
from the faded uniforms of blue and red to the 
black mouths of cannon. It has all the anxiety, 
all the sorrow, all the hopes and all the prayers. 
It has all the zeal and all the despair. All the 
horror and all the pomp and empty glory. It 
may only be a rearpost — ^way out where Europe 
kneels to the Atlantic — and where one can pray 
for peace. But war is there, after all. 



CHAPTEE XXI 

MYTHS 

The European war zone at the beginning of 
hostilities was as busy a fable factory as were San 
Juan and Santiago during the Spanish-American 
conflict when '' yellow journalism" was supposed 
to have reached its zenith. It was a great pity, 
for the truth of the European war is stupendous 
enough. Newspaper myths and yellow faking 
have never had less excuse. In many cases it 
may take years to properly classify the facts. 

Not all of the myths have been deliberate ones. 
At the outbreak of the war rumor followed 
rumor so swiftly, and was so often attested by 
the statements of ' ' eye-witnesses, ' ' that inevitably 
it was transformed en route from fancy into fact. 
Sometimes a tense public itself raised definitely 
labeled rumors to the rank of official communica- 
tions. In a few instances war correspondents 
have deliberately faked. 

The censorship, generally unintelligent, some- 
times incredibly stupid, is responsible for a great 
many myths. ''Beating the censor" was a gleeful 

256 



MYTHS 257 

game for some correspondents until it became 
clear that the censor always held the winning 
hand, and that he could even suppress their activi- 
ties altogether. The "half truths" of the official 
communications have also been responsible for 
much flavoring of the real news with fiction. 

The similarity iu names of the river Sambre 
and Somme, the one being in Belgium and the 
other in France, undoubtedly had much to do with 
the wording of the French communiques when 
France was first invaded. Day after day the des- 
patches laconically referred to ''the fighting on 
the Sambre." Then one Sunday morning, when 
it was considered impossible to keep back the truth 
much longer, a casual communique mentioned the 
fighting line ''on the Somme." The press of the 
world, which had been deliberately kept in the 
dark for days, can scarcely be blamed for losing 
its head a trifle and printing scare headlines 
unprecedented since news became a commodity. 

The greatest of all war fakes, and one that had 
not the slightest foundation of truth, is the story 
of the Eussian army rushed from Archangel to 
Scotland, thence through England to France to 
aid at the battle of the Marne. This story is 
entirely discredited to-day, but it died hard, and 
no wonder, for there never was a story with so 



258 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

many **eye witnesses," so much ''absolute proof" 
of its authenticity. From the highlands of Scot- 
land to the hamlets of Brittany peasants were 
awakened at night by the tramp of marching feet. 
Upon investigation the Cossacks of the Czar were 
revealed hurrying on their way to the western bat- 
tle line. I have never heard where the story 
originated, but every correspondent with the 
Allied forces believed it. A friend living near a 
French seaport whose honesty I can not question, 
wrote to me telling in detail of the landing of an 
entire Eussian army corps. I talked with officers 
of both the English and French armies who swore 
to a definite knowledge that Russians were then 
in France and would soon be fighting in the front 
line. To my recollection the story was never 
denied, and only the fact that the Russians never 
did reach that front line where they were so 
eagerly awaited, brought the story into the classi- 
fication where it belonged. 

Another great fake, but different from this one 
in that it had a slight foundation of truth, is the 
story of the French taxicab army under General 
Gallieni, that swept out of Paris forty to eighty 
thousand strong (accounts differed) and which 
fell on the flank of the Germans and saved the 
city. This story became the most popular of the 



MYTHS 259 

entire war, and it is still implicitly believed by 
thousands of persons. I saw that taxicab army 
and am therefore able to state that about ninety 
per cent, of the story written about it is fiction. 
The ten per cent, fact is that the army of General 
Manoury was in process of formation for days 
before the battle of the Marne. The troops were 
sent around and through Paris to occupy a posi- 
tion west of Compiegne. I watched thousands of 
them, the Senegalese division, march through 
Paris on foot during the latter days of August, 
1914. It was the methodical, though hasty, crea- 
tion by the General Staff of a new army. At 
the same time the General Staff was conducting, 
under General Joffre, the great retreat from 
Charleroi. 

At the beginning of the battle of the Marne a 
few regiments were still in Paris. The Military 
Governor, General Gallieni, was instructed to rush 
them north by any means available. The 
northern railways were in German hands, and the 
only way was to send them in taxicabs. So many 
chauffeurs had been mobilized that Paris had then 
probably not more than two thousand taxis. At 
the tightest squeeze not more than four soldiers 
with heavy marching equipment, could have been 
carried in one of the small Paris taxicabs. The 



26o PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

taxicab army, therefore, may have numbered four 
regiments, or eight thousand men, while the real 
figures may possibly be less. It was not the army 
of Paris gallantly rushing out to save the city. 
The army of Paris had instructions to remain in 
the city and to defend it. The taxicab army was 
a fine and dramatic piece of news, expanded to 
fit the imagination of an excited world. 

The fable factory actually began operations 
before the declaration of war, when with the sud- 
den shortage of money, tales of starving and 
otherwise suffering American tourists were cabled 
to New York by the yellow press. But the Paris 
papers, and the general press, awaited mobiliza- 
tion orders before becoming graphic without the 
support of facts. 

On the first day of hostilities several papers 
printed thrilling details of the airman Garros hav- 
ing brought down a Zeppelin. Garros was then 
waiting for military orders at his Paris apart- 
ment and laughed heartily at the story when I 
telephoned to him. 

Four times during the first month of the war 
I read of the death of the airman Vedrines. Six 
months later I met him on one of my trips to the 
front. The death of Max Linder, the comedian, 
was also dramatically related by the Paris press, 



MYTHS 261 

but a few nights later I found Linder on the ter- 
rasse of a boulevard cafe relating his very live 
adventure in getting there. 

Leaving out of consideration the feelings of the 
men's families these were after all comparatively 
harmless and unimportant fakes. A more sinis- 
ter story, hinted at for weeks and finally openly 
printed, was that a certain French general had 
been shot for treachery while stationed near the 
Belgian frontier. So persistent was this report 
that it was finally necessary for General Jofifre 
himself to issue a statement that the general in 
question was alive and well and had merely been 
removed to another field of active service. 

Of all the fakes and all the fakirs, I believe the 
French authorities will admit that the greatest 
offenders have been their own papers. The Eng- 
lish correspondents were always fairly reliable, 
while the accounts furnished the American papers 
have received the least criticism of all — and the 
greatest praise. The most outstanding example 
of incorrect information appearing in the British 
press was a story early in the war that the British 
expeditionary force had been entirely destroyed. 
It is only just to state that the writer of the story 
was ignorant of his facts and not a wilful fakir. 
Nevertheless he has since been persona non grata 



262 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

in France and has confined his activities to the 
Eussian front. 

Not all of the American accounts have been 
free from faking. One American correspondent 
printed an ''exclusive interview" with President 
Poincare which he declared was arranged and took 
place on the battlefield. This story was entirely 
false, the correspondent merely seeing the Presi- 
dent reviewing the troops, a dozen other corre- 
spondents having the same privilege. 

The most glaring example of inaccuracy upon 
the part of an American writer was an account 
of the battle of Ypres which appeared in both 
English and American publications. This ac- 
count, giving the entire credit for the victory 
to the English, with faint praise for the French, 
was resented by both the English and French 
officers, the former as sportsmen not wishing 
undue praise, and the latter naturally piqued that 
a story having such wide circulation should not 
have been based more materially upon facts. 
This correspondent was later denied the privilege 
of visiting the French front and has retired from 
the zone of military activity. 

Most of the fakes, as I have shown, occurred at 
the beginning of the war, or during the first six 
months, when all the world was in a state of great 



MYTHS 263 

excitement, and when correspondents, the major- 
ity of whom had never seen a war before, should 
have been forgiven for sometimes letting 
their imaginations run riot. During the past 
twelve months, since organization has taken the 
place of chaos in so many activities related to the 
war, and when correspondents have acquired 
experience and perspective, I know of scarcely 
any cases of wilful misrepresentation of the truth. 
During the battle of Champagne in September, 
1915, one correspondent did attempt to project 
his astral body to the battlefield for the purpose 
of writing an ''eye witness" account of the fight- 
ing; but he paid dearly for the indiscretion. He 
was at once crossed off the official list of corre- 
spondents at the French war office and all his cre- 
dentials were withdrawn for the duration of the 
war. 



CHAPTEE XXII 

WHElsr OHEI^AL, SINGS THE " MAKSEILLAISE " 

I WENT to the Opera Comique one day to hear 
Marthe Chenal sing the "Marseillaise." For 
several weeks previous I had heard a story going 
the rounds of what is left of Paris life to the 
effect that if one wanted a regular old-fashioned 
thrill he really should go to the Opera Comique 
on a day when Mile. Chenal closed the perform- 
ance by singing the French national hymn. I was 
told there would be difficulty in securing a seat. 

I was rather skeptical. I also considered that 
I had had sufficient thrills since the beginning of 
the war, both old-fashioned and new. I believed 
also that I had already heard the "Marseillaise" 
sung under the best possible circumstances to pro- 
duce thrills. One of the first nights after mobili- 
zation 10,000 Frenchmen filled the street beneath 
the windows of the New York Times office where 
I was at work. They sang the "Marseillaise" 
for two hours, with a solemn hatred of their na- 
tional enemy sounding in every note. The so- 

264 



WHEN CHENAL SINGS 265 

lemnity changed to a wild passion as the nigM 
wore on. Finally, cuirassiers of the guard rode 
through the street to disperse the mob. It was a 
terrific scene. 

So I was willing to admit that the ''Marseil- 
laise" is probably the most thrilling and most 
martial national song ever written, but I was just 
not keen on the subject of thrills. 

Then one day a sedate friend went to the Opera 
Comique and it was a week before his ardor sub- 
sided. He declared that this rendition of a song 
was something that will be referred to in future 
years. ''Why," he said, "when the war is over 
the French will talk about it in the way Ameri- 
cans still talk about Jenny Lind at Castle Garden, 
or De Wolf Hopper reciting 'Casey at the Bat.' " 

This induced me to go. I was convinced that 
whether I got a thrill or not the singing of the 
"Marseillaise" by Chenal had become a distinct 
feature of Paris life during the war. 

I never want to go again. To go again might 
deepen my impression — might better register the 
thrill. But then it might not be just the same. 
I would be keyed to such expectancy that I might 
be disappointed. Persons in the seats behind me 
might whisper. And just as Chenal got to the 
"Amour sacre de la patrie" some one might 



266 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

cough. I am confident that something of the sort 
would surely happen. I want always to remem- 
ber that ten minutes while Chenal was on the 
stage just as I remember it now. So I will not 
go again. 

The first part of the performance was Doni- 
zetti's ''Daughter of the Eegiment," beautifully 
sung by members of the regular company. But 
somehow the spectacle of a fat soprano nearing 
forty in the role of the twelve-year-old vivandiere, 
although impressive, was not sublime. A third 
of the audience were soldiers. In the front row 
of the top balcony were a number of wounded. 
Their bandaged heads rested against the rail. 
Several of them yawned. 

After the operetta came a ''Ballet of the Na- 
tions." The "nations," of course, represented 
the Allies. We had the delectable vision of the 
Eussian ballerina dancing with arms entwined 
about several maids of Japan. The Scotch las- 
sies wore violent blue jackets. The Belgian girls 
carried large pitchers and rather wept and 
watered their way about the stage. There were 
no thrills. 

After the intermission there was not even avail- 
able space. The majority of the women were in 
black— the prevailing color in these days. The 




MDLLE. CHENAL SINGING THE MARSEILLAISE 



WHEN CHENAL SINGS 267 

only touclies of brightness and light were in the 
uniforms of the officers liberally sprinkled through 
the orchestra and boxes. 

Then came ''Le Chant du Depart," the famous 
song of the Revolution. The scene was a little 
country village. The principals were the officer, 
the soldier, the wife, the mother, the daughter and 
the drummer boy. There was a magnificent sol- 
dier chorus and the fanfare of drums and 
trumpets. The audience then became honestly 
enthusiastic. I concluded that the best Chenal 
could do with the "Marseillaise," which was next 
on the program, would be an anti-climax. 

The orchestra played the opening bars of the 
martial music. With the first notes the vast 
audience rose. I looked up at the row of 
wounded leaning heavily against the rail, their 
eyes fixed and staring on the curtain. I noticed 
the officers in the boxes, their eyes glistening. I 
heard a convulsive catch in the throats of persons 
about me. Then the curtain lifted. 

I do not remember what was the stage setting. 
I do not believe I saw it. All I remember was 
Chenal standing at the top of a short flight of 
steps, in the center near the back drop. I indis- 
tinctly remember that the rest of the stage was 
filled with the soldier chorus and that near the 



268 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

footlights on either side were clusters of little 
children. 

"Up, sons of France, the call of glory — " 
Chenal swept down to the footlights. The 
words of the song swept over the audience like 
a bugle call. The singer wore a white silk gown 
draped in perfect Grecian folds. She wore the 
large black Alsatian head dress, in one corner of 
which was pinned a small tricolored cockade. 
She has often been called the most beautiful 
woman in Paris. The description was too lim- 
ited. With the next lines she threw her arms 
apart, drawing out the folds of the gown into the 
tricolor of France — heavy folds of red silk draped 
over one arm and blue over the other. Her head 
was thrown back. Her tall, slender figure simply 
vibrated with the feeling of the words that poured 
forth from her lips. She was noble. She was 
glorious. She was sublime. With the "March 
on, march on," of the chorus, her voice arose high 
and fine over the full orchestra, and even above 
her voice could be sensed the surging emotions 
of the audience that seemed to sweep over the 
house in waves. 

I looked up at the row of wounded. One man 
held his bandaged head between his hands and 



WHEN CHENAL SINGS 269 

was crying. An officer in a box, wearing the gor- 
geous uniform of the headquarters staff, held a 
handkerchief over his eyes. 

Through the second verse the audience alter- 
nately cheered and stamped their feet and wept. 
Then came the wonderful "Amour sacre de la 
patrie ' ' — sacred love of home and country — ^verse. 
The crashing of the orchestra ceased, dying away 
almost to a whisper. Chenal drew the folds of 
the tricolor cloak about her. Then she bent her 
head and, drawing the flag to her. lips, kissed it 
reverently. The first words came like a sob from 
her soul. From then until the end of the verse, 
when her voice again rang out over the renewed 
efforts of the orchestra, one seemed to live 
through all the glorious history of France. At 
the very end, when Chenal drew a short jeweled 
sword from the folds of her gown and stood, 
silent and superb, with the folds of the flag 
draped around her, while the curtain rang slowly 
down, she seemed to typify both Empire and Ee- 
public throughout all time. All the best of the 
past seemed concentrated there as that glorious 
woman, with head raised high, looked into the 
future. 

And as I came out of the theater with the silent 



270 PASSED BY THE CENSOR 

audience I said to myself that a nation with a 
song and a patriotism such as I had witnessed 
could not vanish from the earth — nor again be 
vanquished. 



THE END 



NOTE 

The attached map of the "Front d'Artois" is the first 
of the kind ever presented to the public. The author of 
this book has been specially authorized to reproduce it 
by the French Ministry of War, under whose direction 
it was first executed from photographs by French air- 
men taken on their trips over the German lines. 

It bears the date September 25, 1915, that being the 
day when the great offensive was launched against the 
Germans both in Artois and Champagne. On that oc- 
casion the map was given only to French officers. 

The heavy blue zigzag line shows the front line of the 
German trenches. The thin blue lines running to the 
rear show the communication trenches extending back 
to the second and even the third lines of defense. The 
French trenches are naturally not shown, but were to 
the west of the Germans, in some places not over fifteen 
yards of barbed wire entanglements separating them. 
At the time of the September attack all these trenches 
were captured by the French. 

The Artois front, which is often called "the sector 
north of Arras, ' ' is one of the most important on the en- 
tire line, inasmuch as the army holding the plateau holds 
also the key to the channel ports. The bloodiest and 
most desperate battles of the war have occurred there. 



FRONT D'ARTOIS 




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